Page 60 of When Sorrows Come

“And if the wound is truly mortal?” she asked, gingerly taking the jar.

“Drink until you choke,” I advised. I honestly had no idea how much of my blood she’d need to heal herself, but more was probably a good idea. “And make sure you warn your guard once you’ve vetted them. It’s my blood, so it’s going to be full of my memories, and you might get confused the same way the High King did.”

“Confused?” asked Chelsea.

“He thought he was October when he first woke up,” said Maida.

Quentin laughed out loud. “I wish I could have seen that,” he said. “It would almost have made up for the rest of this.” He turned his back on his father and walked—stalked, really—over to the couch where the rest of the teenagers were sitting, compacting himself onto the arm of the couch with his feet resting on Dean’s lap. Dean didn’t object, just hooked an arm around Quentin’s knees and gave the High King a challenging look, like he was daring the literal regent of the entire continent to say anything about this seating arrangement.

Dear Oberon, was I training an entire army of disrespectful teenagers who didn’t care who they offered insult to? I hoped not.

“Chelsea, do you know when you’re supposed to go pick up the next wave of guests?” I asked, more sharply than I intended to.

“Um...” Chelsea pulled out her phone, checking the screen. “Now looks about good. Boys, you wanna come with me?”

In short order, the teens were trooping toward the door, taking Chelsea’s popcorn bucket with them, leaving me alone with Tybalt, Walther, Cassie, and the two Sollys monarchs. Quentin didn’t say goodbye to either of his parents. His mother looked stung though she didn’t say anything.

“You can’t tell anyone else he’s here,” I said. “Even with Fiac in the room, you shouldn’t have cause to mention whether or not you know where the Crown Prince is, and if you let us get through the wedding and leave, there won’t be any questions about the validity of the line of succession.”

“I know,” said Aethlin. He sounded utterly miserable. “Does my sonactuallyhate me? Have I failed so completely as a father?”

“I don’t think he hates you; I think he’s just a teenager and under a lot of stress and lashing out at someone it’s safe to be mad at. I also don’t think I’m the person you should be asking,” I said. “Take Cassie and Walther with you and start interviewing your staff. We need to know who we can trust, and I need to change my clothes before I go find the others and talk to Nessa.”

“Nessa?” Maida didn’t bother to conceal her surprise. “Why do you need to talk to Nessa?”

I glanced at Tybalt and smiled warmly. With everyone else taking care of their respective errands and nothing, for the moment,that demanded our immediate attention, it was time to do a little more toward keeping my word.

“She still hasn’t shown us the venue, and I need to make sure it doesn’t smell like maple syrup.”

Tybalt’s look of surprised delight was worth all the possible charges of insurrection in the world.

fifteen

The royal kitchens were,unsurprisingly, enormous and much more industrial than I’d expected them to be. Obviously, they couldn’t use steel in a knowe, but every surface was either polished marble or equally polished maple; itgleamed,with the warm, organic slickness that only ever comes to well-oiled and treated wood. It was like walking into the medieval equivalent of one of those Food Network cooking shows May sometimes puts on after midnight when she wants to unwind.

One entire wall was ovens and stoves and open holes leading to oceans of flame that probably had some reasonable name like “pizza ovens” or “big fucking baking place,” but looked to me a lot more like gateways into the human concept of Hell. You could burn in one of those open ovens for a long, long time. The opposite wall was all shelves of dry goods, joints of meat hanging on wooden hooks, and closed doors leading into an assortment of pantries. It was dizzyingly expansive, and not made less so by the veritable army of Hobs, Brownies, and Hobgoblins bustling around the sinks and stoves, all of them working at preparing the next meal for the high table.

I wondered whether there was any chance we’d get to eat this one, or whether our time in Toronto was going to be one long chain of missed opportunities to sit down and stuff our faces like civilized people. Maybe the knowe understood that we really weren’t civilized people and was just trying to save us the embarrassmentof me forgetting which fork was supposed to go in my salad versus which fork was supposed to go in the person I was trying to kill.

One of the Hobs looked up from her work and smiled brilliantly at the sight of us—an emotion I was sure had to be at least somewhat dishonest, since even the Hobs of Shadowed Hills, who genuinely loved me, never looked that happy to have their territory invaded.

Then, still smiling, she said, “Your friends are at the tables in the back,” and I saw the frozen edge of terror behind her smile. The Luidaeg must have introduced herself, then. That made things make a lot more sense. People with more of a concept of their own mortality than I and my friends tend to possess get a little weirded-out when Firstborn walk in and announce themselves just for the sake of a sandwich.

And to be fair, we’re only that mellow about certain Firstborn. Three, to be precise, out of the six I’ve met so far, but Eira is unpleasant enough to make up for ten of her kinder siblings.

“Cool,” I said. “Do we need an escort?”

“No, no,” she said, shaking her head. Then, in case there had been any question about her nerves, she added, “Please. Be our guest.”

I realized all the other kitchen staffers were watching us warily, like mice all too aware that a snake had just slithered into the room. I reached back to take Tybalt’s hand, answering her smile with one of my own. If mine had a few too many edges, well, hers was about as sincere as Evening complimenting a changeling’s hairstyle.

“Appreciated,” I said. “Do you know where Kerry is?”

Her smile turned even more strained, crumbling around the edges like a riverbank during a rainstorm. “She has commandeered one of the cold pantries, and demanded—quite imperiously, might I add—that we not allow you anywhere near it, or tell you precisely which one she’s in, as you are not allowed to see the cake before the wedding.”

“Really?” I asked, amused, and glanced toward Tybalt. “Is this a weird pureblood thing? Because with humans, it’s the dress that the groom isn’t supposed to see ahead of time, not the cake and the bride. And since my groom designed my dress, I think we’ve already opted out of most of the traditions, and you told me I’d get to approve the cake.”

“Far be it from me to override a Hob where hearthcraft is concerned,” he said, with no sign of remorse. If anything, he looked amused.

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