Page 10 of A Killing Frost

I blinked. We were eating after all? Well, all right. Jason turned to me. I managed to muster a smile as I handed him my menu and said, “I’ll have the filet mignon, well done, baked potato with everything, and a house salad with blue cheese.”

“Very good,” said Jason, managing to suppress his moue of disapproval at my steak order. I’d been to the restaurant often enough that both he and the chef understood why I needed my steak just a few steps shy of becoming a charcoal briquette, much as it pained everyone involved. “Will there be anything else?”

“Not right now,” said Tybalt.

Jason might be practicing his best customer service obliviousness, but he was still Cait Sidhe, and he could hear the unhappiness in his King’s voice. “I’ll get your orders in,” he said, and fled.

Good. I wanted this next part to be semiprivate. I looked across the table to Tybalt. “Youknew,” I accused, and he flinched away from the bitter betrayal in my voice. “Don’t try to pretend you didn’t. You’re a pureblood, you knew Simon was legally my father,and you didn’t tell me this could happen. How could you keep something like this from me?”

“As long as you had no idea of the implications of your relationship to him, you had a defense against him making any claim of offense,” he said. “You could argue that because you were raised human, human law had a greater authority over you, and he had no right to demand niceties you had never been taught. Queen Windermere would have been able to rule in your favor.”

“An argument the Lordens just blew out of the water,” I said glumly. “You know how much I hate people keeping secrets from me.”

“I do.”

“Yet you did it anyway.”

He looked down at his empty plate. “Will it help to say that I had only the best intentions, and meant no harm?”

“Sylvester lied to me with the best intentions and look how that turned out.” I tried to force my anger aside. It wasn’t budging. “What the hell would make you think it would go differently this time?”

“I love you?” he ventured.

“Love isn’t going to be enough if we’re lying to each other.”

Tybalt sighed. “What Sylvester did, unfair and cruel as it was, was of no benefit to you. He kept secrets solely to benefit himself, to salve his own feelings of betrayal over how things had ended between his brother and your mother. I withheld information because it was the only means of protecting you—and ignoranceisa valid defense. Every time I have personally witnessed a charge of offense being refused, it was because the one who had given it could successfully argue that they didn’t know. Arden would be inclined to take your side, especially if you had the truth behind you. I would have told youafterwe were married, when the offense had been given and forgiven, and your ignorance was no longer protective.”

I wanted to believe him. I just wasn’t sure I could. “You know how I feel about people keeping secrets from me.”

“And you know how I feel about your safety. I will always protect you if I have it in my power to do so. Even if it may cause us problems afterward.”

I narrowed my eyes, glaring at him. “And how were you planning to deal with situations like the one we’re in right now?”

“I wasn’t. Simon has so few friends left, I never anticipated one of them ambushing us like this.”

That was putting it mildly. Simon was practically public enemy number one in the Mists, and Patrick might be the last person in the Kingdom who gave a damn about him. Patrick, who was going to have a lot of groveling to do to get back into my good graces. Dianda would have to do slightly less, but only slightly, and only because I knew this hadn’t been her idea. I sighed. “No more secrets. No more lies. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” he said, with some relief, before looking up again and saying, “It seems the time for another quest is come upon us.”

“There’s no ‘us’ in this one,” I said. “You haven’t stepped down from your throne yet, and that means wherever I have to go to fix this, I can’t take you with me.”

“You can’t go alone,” he said, tone imperious. “I will not abide it.”

“Gosh, you bounced back fast from pissing me off. That was a good choice of words. Dangerously close to ‘I won’t allow it,’ which you know would get these flowers thrown at your head, but you managed to swerve at the last second.” I snagged another roll, trying to keep my expression as mild as possible. There was no point in being doomedandhungry. Might as well fix the one I had some ability to deal with. “We knew I was going to have to go looking for him eventually. The Luidaeg made me promise, and Karen called earlier tonight. She said she had a dream about me going on a quest with Quentin and May, but not you. If I bring anyone else, I fail. You can’t come with me.”

“I don’t care for your niece’s gift of prophecy being turned against me so.”

“And I don’t care for being lied to, so let’s call it even for right now, okay?” I glared at him across the table. He met my eyes for a few seconds before sighing and turning his face away.

“As you say,” he said. “I have one further concern. You can find his body without too much trouble, I’m sure; I have faith in your ability to locate things that have been lost. What about his heart?”

“That’s... going to be more difficult,” I admitted.

“Indeed.”

Simon was a lot of things. At the moment, he was a villain, lost in the darkness and unsure of how to find his way back. Maybe incapable of finding his way back because—once—he’d been something a lot closer to a hero. Heroes run in the Torquill family, after all.

He’d originally turned to dark paths in an attempt to find his daughter, August, and bring her safely home. What he hadn’t known was that August had traded her way home to the Luidaeg for a path she believed would lead her to Oberon. She’d been hoping to find him and bring him back to Faerie, making herself a greater hero than her uncle had ever been. Making herself more of a legend than our mother. She’d failed.

---