Page 46 of When Sorrows Come

“Um,” I said. “Hey.”

“October Christine Daye,” said Stacy, voice getting louder with each passing syllable. She stood, Cassandra leaning to the side to clear her way, and strode toward me, jabbing a finger at my chest. “What. Did you do. To thatdress?!”

“Um.” It didn’t feel like a question with any good answers. Plus there were so many of them. “I got it wet? And cold? And I think maybe I bled on it a little...”

Quentin made a stifled choking noise. I glanced at him. “Alittle?” he asked. “Toby, you had a whole knife sticking out of your side! A knife, just jammed into the side of you like it had any business being there in the first place! You bled on that thing alot.”

“Yeah, but only on the black part.” I looked back at Stacy, who seemed like the much more immediate danger. “I got stabbed, if that’s what you’re asking, and it feels sort of like you already knew that before you said anything, so I guess I don’t understand why this has to be some sort of a production when we have other things we need to be worried about right now—”

“I am never going to live in a world where you gettingstabbedisn’t something to worry about!” snapped Stacy.

I turned pleadingly to Tybalt. “A little help here?”

“Oh, I think she’s doing quite well without my assistance,” he said. “But if you insist, I have never been one to leave a lady fair in distress.”

“See? Even Tybalt thinks you need to worry more about gettingactually stabbed.” Stacy jabbed her finger at my chest again. “If you won’t worry about yourself, you shouldn’t be surprised when we do the worrying for you!”

“I’m not surprised,” I sighed. “More just frustrated that you want to focus on thisnow.”

“She has a point,” said Walther. “Two people are dead.”

“Speaking of dead people, where’s Caitir?” I asked, looking around like our temporarily resident Candela might be crouching in the corner with her Merry Dancers. “Did you wake her up?”

“He did, and she immediately ran off to tell the High King what was going on,” said Raj, sounding incredibly bored with the wholesituation, which was apparently not rising to meet his standards for a stirring afternoon. “If you didn’t want him to know that you were causing trouble, you should have asked us to sit on her.”

“I don’t think sitting on a Candela will stop them from opening a doorway into the shadows,” objected Chelsea.

Raj waved a hand, brushing her objections away. “We would have tried, which is more than we did in the absence of instruction.”

“The High King was there when we discovered the Doppelganger, and when we found the traps on Nessa’s room,” I said, more amused than aggravated by his ongoing attempts to be as frustrating as possible. “Pretty sure he already knows I’m causing trouble. Or, well, not causing trouble, but trouble-adjacent once again.”

“That should go on your business cards,” said Quentin.

“We are getting away from the point,” said Stacy, jabbing her finger at me a third time. “You were supposed to be sitting down to a nice, calm, diplomatic dinner with the High King, not causing an inter-Kingdom incident and getting yourselfstabbed!”

“It’s a pretty small hole,” I said. “You can stitch it up later, right?”

Stacy made a disgusted noise, throwing her hands up, and turned to stalk back to the room she’d claimed as her prep space. “It’s fine, let her go,” said May when I started to turn and follow. “You know how she is.”

“I do,” I agreed, slumping as I turned back toward the group. “I mean, I thought she knew how I was, too, but I do know how she is.” Stacy had been like this since we were children, upset when thwarted, slow to recover from a seeming offense, then all smiles and sunshine once the moment passed, like a thing only mattered while it was actually happening, and could be dismissed as past and resolved the second it was done. Me being stabbed had apparently offended the princess wedding fantasy she’d constructed around the occasion.

To be fair, we’d spent the normal amount of time daydreaming about our weddings when we were children, and she had always wanted the big ceremony and the impossible ideal. And she was the one who’d gotten a local community center and a family friend ordained by the Universal Life Church. I was about to live her dream, and I wasn’t taking it nearly seriously enough to deserve it.

“Here, you look like you could use these,” said Kerry, pushing two cookies into my hand and offering an encouraging smile. “I’m just going to go talk her down.” She handed the tray to Tybalt, and followed Stacy’s path to the changing room, letting herself inside with a little wave for the rest of us.

Walther pushed himself off the floor and moved to join Cassandra, pausing along the way to collect the tray of cookies. “What?” he asked when Tybalt lifted an eyebrow. “They’re good cookies!”

“They are at that,” I agreed, looking at the two in my hand. Chocolate chunk and maple ginger, from the look and smell of them. “But we still have the whole Doppelganger and boobytraps issue to deal with.”

“Spoilsport,” said Raj.

“This was an attack on the Mists as much as it was an attack on the High Kingdom of the Westlands,” said Nolan, with unusual gravity. “Had the Doppelganger impersonating the Lady Nessa been successful in the attempt to harm the High King after Sir Daye’s arrival, the attack would no doubt have been attributed to her reputation as a king-breaker. Even if we could prove she had been in no way involved, the rumor would have spread and undermined any faith in the High King’s heir.”

“Princess Penthea is still too young to inherit without a regent, and very few would stand for High Queen Maida ruling alone,” said Nessa. “I cannot speak to the reasons why, but they are well known among the highest ranking of the nobles, the ones who circle like wolves, seeking to sink their teeth into the first available throne.”

“So you call forth the Crown Prince from wherever he’s hiding,” said Walther, not looking at Quentin himself, who was sitting stiff-backed in his spot on the couch. Walther nonchalantly bit a cookie. “He hasn’t reached his majority yet, but he should still be able to weigh down the throne long enough to convince the wolves to go after an easier target.”

“There was a rumor that he had been concealed in the Mists,” said Nessa carefully. “Sunk deep in the concealing gray, where no one would be able to find him. If so, the rumor ran, he would accompany Sir October’s party to the knowe for the wedding. The timing of this matter is no coincidence.”

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