Page 71 of Silver and Lead (October Daye #19)

TWENTY-THREE

I DIDN’T THINK YOU’D really give her the baby,” said Dame Altair, focusing on the bundle in my arms. “She swore she’d succeeded, but I knew she was wrong.”

I twisted, shielding the bundle in my arms from view with my body. “Don’t you look at her,” I snapped. “I don’t want you looking at her.”

“Fine, fine.” Dame Altair put her hands up, showing me that they were empty. “I won’t look at your precious baby. She wouldn’t pay me for it now anyway, since she thinks she’s already got it. Unless you were in the mood to make a trade…?”

“Get the hell out of our way,” snapped May, starting down the porch steps.

Dame Altair made a complicated gesture with one hand and briars shot out of the greenery around the porch, wrapping themselves around May’s arms, legs, and throat as they jerked her to a halt.

“Uh-uh,” she said. “Untitled little death omens don’t get to talk to me that way. I’m a member of the nobility, remember.”

“Queen Windermere is going to strip your title and banish you from the kingdom,” said Madden.

“That assumes Queen Windermere is ever going to hear what happened here.”

“Of course she is,” said Madden.

“Don’t threaten my wife,” snapped Tybalt.

Dame Altair sighed. “You people are so fond of forgetting that the Daoine Sidhe are Titania’s favorite children, which means flower magic as much as blood.

” She made another complicated gesture, and flowers all around the courtyard spread their petals wider as they released puffs of pollen into the air.

Most were invisible, but a few were dense enough to rise as dusty plumes, easy to mark with my eyes.

“Just breathe and you’ll tell the story I want from you,” she said.

“Two problems with that,” I countered.

“Oh?”

“First, that’s a drug, and drugs don’t stay in my system for very long. I’ll shake it off while you’re still figuring out what lie you want us to tell.”

“That’s one,” said Dame Altair. “I’m willing to take the risk.”

“Okay,” I said agreeably. “Second, then: we’re outside.”

“And?”

“And whatever it is you’ve been using to block access to the Shadow Roads is inside .”

Tybalt leapt from the porch, changing shapes as he went, and hit the ground as a tabby cat, racing for the shadows beneath the nearest tree. Dugan whipped around, trying to grab Tybalt’s tail in one hand. He missed by inches, and Tybalt vanished into the shadow.

Dame Altair laughed. “He left you. He left his child . What purpose does it serve to reach the shadows if all he can do is leave you?”

“Tybalt never leaves me,” I said. My head was starting to spin from the pollen in the air, and my tongue felt thick.

That was fine. I bit the inside of my cheek, and the dizziness faded almost immediately.

I tried not to let it show in my expression as I faced Dame Altair.

She needed to believe that I was going under.

“He left you this time,” said Dame Altair, tone mocking. She began walking toward me. “You look like you’re going to fall over, October. Give me the baby. You don’t want to drop it.”

I held my daughter tighter, taking half a step backward. I managed to turn it into a stumble, maintaining the illusion of inebriation. Like hell was I giving her my baby.

“Come now. You won’t even remember how willingly you handed the little bundle of joy over.

You’ll go to your grave convinced that you fought to the end to protect your child, and you can always have another one.

If the cat truly never leaves you, as you say, there will be plenty of opportunities to repeat the breeding. ”

I tried to tune her out, biting my cheek again and counting the seconds as Dame Altair spoke.

Distances were shorter on the Shadow Roads.

It couldn’t take Tybalt that long to reach Shade’s Court, to leave the dark and the cold for the light of another Monarch’s presence.

Once there, he could save us. I knew he could.

So I glared at Dame Altair and shielded my baby with my body, stalling for time as she approached.

If she’d been quick about it, she might have pulled it off.

I was unarmed and still dealing with a mild case of iron poisoning; Madden was too injured to shift into his more combat-ready shape, Quentin was weak from blood loss, May was wrapped in briars, and Walther wasn’t a fighter.

All of them were more impaired by the pollen than I was.

If Dame Altair had been willing to do what she felt needed doing without taking the time to taunt me, this would all have ended in the open air of the courtyard, so close to freedom that I could taste it.

She reached me, and reached for my baby at the same time.

I bared my teeth at her, a reaction I’d learned from Tybalt, and was about to reveal that I was shaking off the effects of her pollen, when the smell of blackberry flowers and redwood bark cut through the air, underscored by redwood bark and lightly crushed blackberries.

More magical signatures appeared, layering themselves onto what was already there, as more and more Tuatha opened holes in the air and stepped through, filling the courtyard.

Dugan whirled, making a wordless croaking sound. Etienne, who had appeared behind him, gave his sword a lazy twirl. “I suppose we’re doing this again?” he asked.

Dugan blanched, spun on his heel, and fled. Etienne pursued.

As this was happening, cats began to pour out of the shadows, swarming for Dame Altair and following after Dugan and Etienne.

She screamed as they raced up her legs, and with her concentration broken, the flowers stopped pumping out pollen.

Dame Altair whirled, slapping at the cats that covered her, trying to knock them away.

Some did fall, but more promptly came, the combined population of two Courts of Cats attacking her mercilessly.

Raj flashed through the swarm, leaping up onto the porch to twine around Quentin’s ankles and place himself protectively between my squire and the rest of the yard.

His fur was puffed out until he seemed twice as large as his normal size—and he had grown to be a not-inconsiderable cat, lean and muscular, if not as bulky as his uncle.

Abyssinian cats tended to be leaner than their domestic cousins, and he was an excellent exemplar of his breed.

Tail lashing, he glared at the flailing Dame Altair and hunkered down, taking up a clearly defensive position. Quentin smiled down at him, but didn’t move. From the way he was wobbling, I wasn’t sure he could move.

Dugan stopped running as Dame Altair’s screams reached a fever pitch.

He tried to lunge for his sister, but he was too far away to reach her.

Instead, he almost ran into Etienne as the man put himself between Dugan and the house.

Dugan recoiled, jumping back. Etienne grinned, looking almost feral at the prospect of a fight to come.

Dugan turned and sprinted for the wall that would take him back to the streets of Berkeley. Etienne started to pursue, then stopped, still grinning, and simply watched as Dugan ran straight into Tybalt.

Tybalt grabbed him by both shoulders, stopping him from jerking away, and smiled. It wasn’t a friendly expression, more an illustration of just how many teeth could fit into a single jaw.

Dugan screamed. That, truly, marked the end to the fight, and as Raj shifted back into a bipedal form and Arden ran up the porch steps to help the rest of us down, I finally started to believe that we were going home.