Page 13 of A Killing Frost

Tybalt looked at me like I’d never said anything more foolish in my entire life, something we both knew wasn’t the case. “We granted my subject the honor of feeding us,” he said. “Why would we need to compensate him further?”

“Silly me,” I said, and picked up my bouquet, tucking it under my arm. “I guess that means we’re ready to go.”

“Indeed.” In a single motion he had swept me off my feet and up into his arms, holding me against his chest as easily as if I were made of straw. He dipped his head toward Patrick and Dianda, more out of politeness than any sincere farewell, I was sure, and strode across the room to the nearest patch of deep shadow.

The shadows pulled apart as he approached, parting like curtains to reveal even deeper darkness beyond. I took a deep breath, screwing my eyes shut against the cold to come, and he carried me onto the Shadow Roads.

FOUR

THE COLD WAS A SHOCK.The cold of the Shadow Roads is always a shock, no matter how often we travel this way. Every kind of fae has their own innate talents and skills; Cait Sidhe, like Tybalt, can access the Shadow Roads, one of the old conduits through the Summerlands. They allow for faster, more efficient travel than should really be possible. Only problem is that while the Shadow Roads are cold and airless for the fae who can natively access them, they’re freezing and suffocating for the rest of us. If I tried to inhale, my lungs would collapse, because there was nothing there for me to breathe in.

I huddled against Tybalt’s chest instead, focusing on the steady, reassuring beat of his heart as I shivered. He would see me safely out of the darkness he’d carried me into. He always had before. And then I would throw myself right into another kind of darkness, as I went searching for the man who’d been my personal bogeyman, only to show a certain sort of stunted heroism in the way he lost himself again.

Why can’t anything ever be easy?

My lungs were starting to burn from the strain of holding my breath when the dark outside my eyelids bloomed into bloody red. I opened my eyes, blinking away the ice coating my lashes, and beheld the brightly lit walls of my own kitchen. May wasn’t there, but the scent of sugar cookies lingered in the air, telling me she hadn’t been gone for long. She hadn’t baked this much when wefirst moved in together. We hadn’t played host to an endless parade of rotating teenagers back then, either.

May and I both remembered what it was like to be young, hungry, and unsure that there were any safe places left in the world. We’d never discussed it openly, but I knew she was as focused as I was on making sure the teens who trusted us would never need to feel the way we’d felt at their age. Not as long as we had the power to keep them safe.

Tybalt swung my feet to the floor, keeping his hands on my waist for a beat longer than necessary. I blinked through the melting ice, offering him a shivering smile. He laughed and plucked the flowers from under my arm, holding them up for me to see.

“A little refrigeration is good for a bouquet,” he said, and turned to take a vase down from the top of the cabinets. “These will keep nicely, I think.”

“They’re really beautiful.” My dress, which had been so appropriate for a dinner out, felt overly fancy for my kitchen. I pushed my hair back with both hands, glancing at the door. “I need to go find May and tell her we’re going hunting for Simon. Do you want to come with me?”

“No.” He suddenly scowled. “If your heart is set on going without me, I’d best practice letting you race off on your own.”

“It’s not my heart, it’s Karen’s vision, combined with the political reality you’ve worked so hard to drum through my thick skull,” I said. “You know I’d take you with me if she hadn’t already told me it would mean failure, and if it wouldn’t make everything harder for you. And for Raj. Poor kid already puts up with enough.”

“He is compensated for his suffering,” said Tybalt. “He’s a Prince of Cats. He’ll never want for anything in his life.”

“Except for freedom, right?”

Tybalt grimaced. “Except that,” he admitted. “I only hope his heart is better behaved than my own, and that it fixes itself upon something easier to keep and protect than you.”

“You’ve basically raised the kid, and the only reason he’s not officially my squire is because the politics of dragging him into the peerage of the Divided Courts might cause someone’s head to actually explode,” I said. “I think the ship of Raj being well-behaved and obedient to Cait Sidhe law has well and truly sailed.”

Tybalt made a pained expression, clearly trying to hide the factthat he was fighting not to smile. “A perfect representative of his kind, he may never be, but he’ll do as he’s told enough to take and hold the throne.”

“I’m really going to enjoy seeing how much he listens to you or does as he’s told once he’s King of Cats,” I said, and blew him a kiss as I made my way to the door.

The downside of having a big house is that sometimes you have to go looking for people. When we shared my old apartment, I knew where May was at all times; she literally couldn’t go to the bathroom without me knowing about it.

Okay, maybe most of having a big house isn’t such a downside after all.

May wasn’t in the living room or the dining room, which eliminated the downstairs from contention. I turned to the stairs, starting upward into the gloom. Her bedroom door stood open, which meant she wasn’t doing anything she’d get mad at me for interrupting. I still paused to knock before sticking my head inside.

My style of housekeeping is best referred to as “benign neglect.” I don’t have a lot ofstuff, which is the only reason there are any visible flat surfaces in my house. If not for Quentin’s desire for tidiness leading to him constantly straightening things up in his wake, we would have lost the dining room to the slow march of spiderwebs and junk mail a long time ago. I’m notfilthyor anything—I wash dishes, do my laundry, and don’t let the bathroom garbage overflow—but I’m messy.

May takes messiness to the Olympic level. Looking into her room is like looking into the Cave of Wonders from a retelling ofAladdin, with costume jewelry, makeup in brightly colored containers, and heaped-up piles of jewel-toned clothing everywhere the eye can see. I swear she emptied out all the drawers of old, weird, unsalable silk scarves at the local thrift stores and used them to build decorative heaps in the corners. Her bed is a sea of pillows, blankets, and the kind of handmade quilts that wind up in those same stores when someone’s grandparents die and their worldly goods get donated because it’s too much to deal with. In short, it’s beautiful, but it’s a lot.

May was sitting on the edge of the bed, brushing her blue-streaked hair and humming an old English folksong under her breath. She looked up and smiled at the sound of my knock, putting the brush aside. “Hey. How was your date?”

I stepped fully into the room and leaned against the doorframe. “More eventful than either Tybalt or I would have preferred, but no one got stabbed, so we’re okay. Where’s Jazz?”

“Out with her flock for the evening,” said May. “Something about family time. I didn’t ask too many questions. She doesn’t like explaining herself, and to be honest, it’s none of my business.”

“Ah,” I said. Jazz is a Raven-maid, a skinshifter, who possesses a feathered band that allows her to transform into a raven and keeps her tied—sort of literally—to Faerie. Now that the Selkies are largely gone, there aren’t many skinshifters left, just the Ravens and Swanmays. Maybe that was why Jazz’s flock had been asking for more of her time lately, sometimes going so far as to land in the front yard and caw until someone came out to ask what they wanted.

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