Icarus Also Flew
by imp

Icarus Also Flew

imp

Summary

Tybalt decides to make Toby hate him; it backfires, since soon after he has to ask for her help. (Alternate summary: TYBALT THIS IS A TERRIBLE PLAN. Wash, rinse, and repeat.)

Notes

None

Chapter 1

Summary

Summary

Notes

Long story short it was a bad time

There's always been something about her.

Everyone, of course, knows about Amandine's daughter. The fact that Amandine chose to play faerie bride is something most people find amusing, and which Tybalt finds disgusting. He was younger and considerably more foolish when he made his own mistake with a mortal, but he had the self-respect to regret it when it inevitably backfired. Amandine simply went insane and left those around her to clean up after her progeny.

Or, at least, tolerate her progeny. Progeny that, as far as Tybalt can tell, is determined to get into any manner of trouble, all under the guise of honor.

When she disappears, he thinks he's pleased. He feels pleased, at any rate. It's no more than an upstart changeling deserves, and really, she should have known better than to chase after purebloods with three times as much power as she has even fully rested. She'll be found, and that will be the end of it. No one will speak of her honor or her heroism any longer.

But he finds he misses her, and wakes up worried as days stretch into months and she doesn't reappear. Fourteen years pass, and he never manages to put her out of his mind, never calls off the subjects he has looking for her, even as their leads fade and they start just striking out randomly, hoping to get lucky.

Then Elaine comes into his room one evening and tells him she's been found, and he feels like ice water has been poured on him. "Thank you," he says, trying for calm.

She nods and leaves, and he - systematically, almost levelly - rakes his claws across the wall with such force that they leave inches-deep scores in the earth beyond the wooden paneling.

That should be the end of it, but he finds her again. He wants to confirm something to himself - he doesn't know what. He's shaken by how wrong she smells, even as he wants to believe it is her, that good fortune has returned her to them again. He knows he should leave it alone, knows he should walk away from her and not look back.

But as with most things in Faerie, "curiosity killed the cat" is a warning as much as it is a human child's nursery rhyme.

-

When she asks him for a favor, for just a moment, his world stops.

He doubts she notices; perceptiveness has never been counted among October's many talents. A pity, considering her insistence at setting herself up as Faerie's most annoying detective. He recovers easily enough, but in the end, he can't tell her no. So she saddles him with an object that shouldn't exist, and then leaves to put herself in even more danger.

If he wasn't entirely certain of his shift in allegiance immediately after she gave him the hope chest, seeing her lying in an Undine's pool, bleeding out, confirms it. She cannot die; that thought is the one that clutches him as he holds her and seeks safety for her. If she dies, he will be bereft. Not because of the hope chest; damn the hope chest. Because of her.

It's not a comfortable thought.

Anne always laughed at him when he became lost in his thoughts. She loved pointing out that it was a trait unbecoming of the Cait Sidhe, whose minds were so mired in instinct and animalism. He'd snarl at her then, but he never meant it, and she knew that and her laughter would redouble in heartiness. Even sitting in his Court, thinking of Toby, he misses her.

But the once-fierce ache has faded, and the bitterness…he can't nurse it, not anymore, without the heavy feeling of knowing he's lying to himself. Not when the finest person he knows, whom he also happens to be in love with, is a changeling.

She will die, doubtless even more stupidly than an ordinary changeling would. Certainly, it will be due to some problem she can't help but meddle in. Tybalt knows this, with a sharpness that doesn't fade, and in fact becomes even clearer when he remembers her prone body in the gardens. She's living on borrowed, stolen, and frantically stitched-together time.

But even that isn't enough to stop the treacherous love and loyalty that is taking hold inside him.

In the end, after Lily treats her, he watches over her. He can't bring himself to do anything else. She's peaceful in sleep, and it makes him ache, want tied up in how oddly beautiful he finds her. At rest, her fire and bite are gone. Even she can't hurl sarcastic invectives at him when she's recovering from almost dying. But he's still drawn to her, not in the least because he knows the promise of the force of nature she'll become once she wakes up.

When he returns to his Court, he firmly delegates what needs doing and locks himself in his room, thinking. This - his feelings and what an idiot they turn him into - can't go on. He knows it with the same certainty that he knows the pattern of Julie's coat and the twists and turns of his Court. He has to do something to stop it. He has to make her not want his presence, even subconsciously; he has to make it so that if she sees him, she'll try to kill him. He has to make it so she'll never, no matter how badly she thinks she needs it, come for his help.

An idea grows. On the whole, it's unforgivable; if anyone else attempted it, he'd kill them on the spot. It's also the only course of action that will accomplish what must be done.

Grimly, he stands and moves to leave. He'll do this for everyone in his Kingdom, the subjects he owes his time to, who deserve a King who's not…distracted. And he'll do it for Toby. He can't - and won't - allow his regard to place them both in danger.

He will finish it.

-

He finds Toby at home, for once, rather than having to track her down. She's making coffee. He smells it before she opens the door. Of course, once the door is open, both the smell and her scowl assault him.

"Tybalt. What do you want?"

He recovers as quickly as he can. "Many things that don't concern you, and one that does."

Her expression doesn't change, revealing her lack of understanding. "I've come to collect on my debt," he adds.

She immediately stiffens, mouth tightening into a hard line. He blinks, however, and then she's just rolling her eyes. "Fine. Come in. I'm getting coffee, and then you can tell me what you need."

'Need' is the wrong word, but he doesn't correct her. Instead, he steps inside and follows her to the kitchen.

She waves him into a chair at the kitchen table, which is cluttered with all manner of junk. She doesn't clean often, and lacks someone to do it for her. If it were feasible, Tybalt would bring her back to the Court of Cats for what they're about to do, but even he knows that doing so would be foolish. No matter how distasteful the act was, her memory would haunt him for years if he saw her in his bed.

"Okay," she says, sitting down. "What's up? Please don't tell me it's a bad case, I'm resting for at least a week before I go off to get shot at again."

He tenses up in spite of himself. "Nothing so strenuous," he says. "Unless you choose it to be."

She narrows her eyes at him. Always so easy to needle - he pushes the rush of affection down and forces himself to smile slowly, cruelly.

He is not going to let this go well.

"Spit it out, Tybalt," she says, leaning back in her chair. "It's nearly nightfall. You're lucky I was even awake."

Tybalt himself had hardly slept. "My dear October," he says, making it sound like an insult. "It was difficult to settle on a favor. You owing me is…tantalizing."

"Not in the mood. Tell me what you want."

He suspects she has already guessed, and is simply lying to herself. Tybalt is rarely direct; it's not in his nature, though he has kept his own private policy of honesty with October. Only recently has that become a problem. "You," he says.

There are a heavy five seconds of silence, and then Toby says, flatly, "Get out."

"Now, now, Toby. You know as well as I do that you can't simply refuse."

"I can, and I will." Her eyes are wide, her hands tight around her coffee mug. She isn't pulling away; she should. Tybalt's intention is not to make this pleasant. "I'll fulfill your favor, Tybalt, I'll find something you've lost or set something right, but I'm not going to -"

"Share your bed?"

"Or yours," she bites out.

Tybalt surveys her for a moment. He feels oddly impassive, having made the decision and slammed the door shut on his affection for her - for now, anyway. "I'm afraid you don't have a choice, October. We're bound."

"Tybalt -"

He leans forward and rests his hands on her wrists. The touch is gentle, but he knows she can feel the strength behind his hands. "Finish your coffee," he says, stroking his thumbs over the delicate bones of her wrists. "There is no need to make this unpleasant."

"Too late for that," she says, but she shakes his hands off and lifts the mug to her mouth.

He watches her with lazy interest, not bothering to hide how much he desires her. He sees the second she makes her decision; she blinks once, had, then tilts the mug further, finishing the entire thing in one movement.

He applauds delicately. "Well done."

"Get up."

He toys with the idea of not obliging her at all, making her sit on his lap or something equally capricious. In the end, though, he stands - after waiting long enough that she is standing as well, glaring at him.

"I should slit your throat for this."

"You would violate Oberon's laws to prevent a quick tumble? I'm shocked, October, absolutely shocked."

"You're a bastard, actually, and you'll be a bastard who never speaks to me again," she snaps. "I mean it, Tybalt. If I ever see you again, it's open season on you. And believe me when I say I won't miss."

"You know exactly what to say to keep me interested," he all but purrs. He's only half lying. He'd be a fool if her fire didn't interest him.

He makes his way unerringly to her bedroom. She follows him in, then stands next to the bed, arms crossed.

Her hands are shaking a little, and for one moment, his stomach twists. He doesn't show it, though, only closes the door with a final-sounding click.

"Fine," she mutters, and reaches for the bottom of her shirt.

"No," Tybalt says.

She stops immediately.

"Wise of you, little fish," he says. He crosses the room in a few steps, stopping close enough that she's forced to look up at him.

He expects her to look away. He is, after all, a King of the Cats; he knows the effects his gaze has. But she keeps her eyes open, angrily glaring even after they begin to water.

He's stalling. He makes himself reach out, fingers skimming Toby's hips.

"You should eat more," he finds himself saying.

"You should have been drowned as a kitten," she says. "If wishes were horses."

He makes his chuckle cruel, then hooks his fingers under her shirt. "Arms up," he says, and takes her shirt off when she obeys.

Once she's naked from the waist up, bra and shirt discarded in a careless pile, he makes a show of studying her impassively. When his wandering eyes reach her face, he sees that she's studying him, as well, eyes narrowed.

"I suppose turnabout is fair play," he says, and unbuttons his shirt.

"Nothing about this is fair play."

"No," he says, and shrugs his shirt off. He doesn't miss the way her eyes flicker over him again, but he forces himself not to react to it. Not emotionally, anyway; he's already hardening, just looking at her, despite the circumstances.

"Let's get on the bed," he says. "Unless you'd prefer to be fucked against the wall like a common whore?"

"You haven't met many whores. And, what, you don't want my pants off? I'm shocked, Tybalt. I thought you were all about easy access."

She manages an impressive amount of sarcasm. "Not yet," he says, and smiles.

It's obvious she's rattled, but she rolls her eyes and gets on the bed, propping herself up with her elbows. "Well?" she says.

He lowers himself over her. Before he was somewhat aroused, but he feels fire where their legs touch. She stiffens slightly when she feels him, but he watches her force herself to relax with the easy practice of someone used to being in danger.

For a second he just looks down at her. He wants to kiss her, but he suspects she'd bite his tongue off, and - that is not what he's here for. Instead he braces himself on a forearm and trails a single finger of his free hand down her left side, just brushing the side of her breast.

"Damn it, Tybalt," she snaps. "Stop acting like -"

When she doesn't finish the sentence, he arches a brow. "Like?"

"You can't just get it over with?"

That doesn't answer his question, but it does give him an opening. "Where would the fun be in that?"  he asks, and splays a hand on her stomach.

It moves slightly when her breath stutters. She looks away from him, stubbornly staring at the ceiling.

The thing to make her hate him the most would be to just take his pleasure and leave, but that would require him being capable of doing so. And - curse it all, he can't bring himself to hurt her physically.  He wouldn't be able to accomplish the deed.

"You know," he says, skimming his hand up and just brushing his fingers over her nipple, "I won't hold it against you if you participate."

"If I touch you, it will be to wring your neck," she says.

"That's bravado. Why not at least tell me you have a knife under the pillow?"

"Maybe I do," she tells the ceiling.

He sighs. This is entirely outside his area of expertise - he's never attempted to seduce the unwilling. But he knows women, so after a moment's thought he ducks his head and kisses down her neck. He makes the kisses dirty, nipping at her skin a little, instinct telling him she'd prefer that to the gentle kisses of a human lover.

He's right. She moves beneath him, just a little, before obviously forcing herself still again.

He smiles a bit, worrying the same patch of skin right at the spot where her shoulder meets her neck. He returns his hand to her breast, pinching very lightly, then caressing, as he mouths down to her other breast and kisses the underside, the curve over her heart, her collarbone.

She sighs a little, shifting. This time she doesn't stiffen up again. She hardly goes soft; Tybalt's not even sure she knows how. But he is no longer kissing a stiff board of a woman.

When he sucks her nipple into his mouth, still lazily playing with her other breast, she gasps. Her legs move, just a bit, hips moving against him. He can smell and sense arousal just as easily as fear, and the balance of the two in her is slowly changing. She still radiates anger, but it's more complex now. He allows himself the luxury of switching breasts, teasing lightly with his tongue where he already reddened her skin, touching her everywhere he can reach.

He glances up at her finally, and feels his stomach fall - she's looking at him, and her face is utterly unreadable. She, who is an open book to him, has shuttered herself.

That won't do.

"Now, I think, pants," he says. His voice is lower, his arousal plain, but he keeps his tone steady. She looks away again and reaches for the button on her jeans.

He beats her to it, though, sitting back on his knees and tugging them down. Her underwear is utilitarian, but Tybalt barely cares. He leans back in, kissing her shoulder and nudging her thighs a little farther apart.

She moves with reluctance, but not the threat of physical violence that she carried earlier. Her skin is soft, ridiculously so; part of him is quietly shocked that he can touch her like this, knuckles brushing over the skin of her inner thighs, just missing her cunt.

"Is this what gets you off?" she says, sarcasm imbuing every word.

"What is 'this', pray tell?" He rests his hand on her hip, leaning in to nip at her jaw, trace his tongue over her ear.

Her breath catches again. "Torturing the unwilling."

"I'd hardly call it that," he says. He runs his thumb down from her belly button to the top of her underwear. "Think about what you know of the Cait Sidhe," he says quietly into her ear. "The base physicality appeals to us, but we are never without finesse. We are not satisfied by…dry, simple intercourse." He moves his thumb down, over the cotton of her underwear, pressing down against her clit and then continuing.

Her underwear is damp. He's assaulted by the feel of it, despite already knowing what he'd find. He moves without thought, then, lifting and tugging her underwear with little finesse. He's more than a little surprised when she moves with him, lifting her hips and kicking the fabric off.

She's beautiful. He touches her again, with two fingers this time, feeling the wetness and spreading it around. It's decadent, and wholly unnecessary; he could enter her now and it would cause her not the slightest bit of pain. But he does it anyway, playing with her clit and shallowly pushing two fingers into her, watching as her breathing increases and her legs fall further apart by the inches. She keeps licking her lips, and he burns with a hunger he can't attribute to anything but the whole of her.

He's completely hard now, and when she moves her legs again, she presses against him. He expects her to flinch, but instead she lifts her head a little and looks down. Her unreadable expression has changed, and he would give anything for her thoughts; but her thoughts are not why he's doing this.

"October," he says quietly, forcing it into a taunt.

She returns her gaze to his face. He pulls his hand away from her cunt and sucks his fingers into his mouth, never breaking eye contact.

Her mouth falls open slightly, and she licks her lips. When she speaks, her husky tone belies her words. "Let's just get this over with."

His mind fails to provide him with any sort of comeback. Wordlessly, he moves away from her and off the bed, stepping out of his trousers and boxer briefs and rolling the condom he brought on. She watches him again, and when he follows the line her body makes on the bed, he realizes she's clutching the sheets tightly.

He's not sure if it's the selfishness of wanting her to touch him, or the desire to not restrict her movement, that makes him lie down next to her.

"Well?" he says when she doesn't move.

"You have got to be kidding," she says flatly.

"I assure you, I'm not."

"Bastard," she mutters. She sits up, though, then straddles him. The muscles in her thighs stand out when she holds herself over him.

For a moment he thinks she really is going to pull a knife out. But then she sinks down onto him, warm and wet, and she swallows hard as her eyes shut.

He rests his hands on her hips, holding her on him as he adjusts to the feel of her. There is no difference, really, between her and other women he's slept with, aside from the obvious markers of Faerie biology - but now that he is here, with her on him, he can't pretend this isn't Toby, that he is entirely detached.

"You may move, you know," he says, rocking his hips up to underscore the point.

She has amazing balance, but even she cannot generate leverage out of nowhere. She leans forward, bracing her hands on his chest and rocking her hips. The friction makes Tybalt shudder, his hands tightening on her hips.

Toby lets out a breath, long and slow, and begins setting a rhythm. She moves with an unthinking grace that Tybalt doesn't think she even knows she has; her eyes are still closed, and her fingers are digging into Tybalt's chest, but she stays slick for him as she moves. He reaches up, touching her breasts, cupping her shoulders, watching her move against and with him.

When she speeds up a little, he slips a hand in and presses against her clit. Her response is immediate, back arching and cunt tightening around him.

"Oak and ash, I - you -"

"Yes?"

She shakes her head, but she speeds up, moving greedily against him. He rubs her in time with their movement, anchoring his other hand on her hip. He can't keep himself from noticing how sweetly they move together, how he aches everywhere they touch, any more than he can keep himself from picturing sitting up and kissing her, slowing their movement with his arms around her.

He refrains, watching her get more and more desperate. Just as she's approaching completion, though, he makes a lightning-fast decision, thumb sliding away from her clit, denying her friction in favor of holding her hips still.

He hardly knows what he wants until her eyes fly open and she gifts him with the most murderous look he's ever gotten from her. He expects her to sit back, and she does - but then she grabs his hands and digs her fingernails in until he lets go.

Her strength isn't greater than his at close range, but he's so surprised when she grips his wrists and pushes forward that he's pinned before he even realizes what's happened. Their faces are inches apart now, and she breathes harshly as she begins moving again, stimulating herself with the advantage of the angle.

It's impossible to ignore the way her body changes, this close. He can all but feel her heart beating, and his fingers curl in on themselves when she begins to come, moving around him, her entire body as she bites her lip hard enough to draw blood and tightens her hands on his wrist tightly enough to bruise.

"Toby," he breathes without thought.

She doesn't make a sound, and her arms don't even shake, but it doesn't matter. They're close enough that he can arch his neck up and kiss her, hard, pushing against her grip and thrusting up roughly.

She makes a shocked noise, and he's about to pull away when she suddenly starts kissing back, another wave of her orgasm hitting her. It goes on so long that Tybalt himself is shaken when she finally pulls back, eyes wide with shock, body finally beginning to relax.

He has to move then. Her arms have enough give that it's child's play to break her hold and roll them over so that she is under him. He has a second's fear that she will lie there, limp, but then she groans and wraps her legs around him, tangling her fingers in his hair and pulling him down to kiss him again.

That's how he comes, surrounded by her in every way, pressed against her and shuddering. She kisses him through it, and keeps kissing him when he's finished. It's he who pulls away, slipping out of her and immediately mourning the loss.

Her eyes are still wide. He has to look away, rolling to the side and pulling the condom off. There's a trash can right next to the bed; he drops it in and then turns back around.

The tension between them is impossibly thick. He knows, with horrifying certainty, that if he tries to kiss her again he'll be rebuffed. And - he has to finish this correctly. So he smirks and reaches out, ignoring how she stiffens in favor of cupping her cunt, pressing the heel of his hand against her clit.

In all honesty, he's expecting to be slapped. His world is sent reeling when she grips the sheets again and cants her hips up, eyes slipping closed.

There is no deity, no parent of Faerie, that he can pray to, but he sends up a helpless plea anyway as he moves to press himself against her, slipping a single finger into her and rubbing her clit. He's more gentle this time, feather-light touches as she shakes against him. It takes him a minute to realize she's making noise, little half-sobs and moans that she fails to swallow.

He kisses her neck, keeping his teeth to himself; it's obvious she wouldn't appreciate them right now. She's moving slowly, all but undulating, her entire body spent; as he brings her slowly but surely back to the edge, he can't help but think that he's never seen her more beautiful - sexually appealing.

No, he thinks as she comes again, mouth open in a silent cry. Beautiful.

For a precious few seconds as she comes down, he thinks he could say something, anything, to set this right. A specific kind of madness has overtaken him; his previous goal seems not to even matter.

But then he pulls his hand away, and she opens her eyes. Her expression is sharp and clear, and she is more angry than he's ever seen her.

"Get out."

Her voice is low, her tone poisonous. He sits up and ruthlessly forces awareness upon himself, smiling down at her with every bit of cruelty he can muster. "Did I say I was finished?"

Her hand moves towards the headboard, and oh, he is a fool. The knife is at his throat before he manages to move.

"Our deal is done. I owe you nothing, and if I ever see you again, I will cut you into so many pieces even the night haunts won't be able to collect all of you."

Her fury rocks him to his core, but he makes himself stand up slowly, get dressed lazily, as she stands and holds the knife. When he's put together, he sketches out a bow and smirks at her. "It's been a pleasure," he says, and looks her up and down one more time.

She snarls. "Get out!" she shouts, advancing on him.

He does. It's not until her door has slammed shut and he is opening up the shadows that he allows himself to feel, unmistakably, his heart breaking.

-

He is a King of Cats, if a pathetic one; he does not have the time to wallow in his own self-destruction. He goes back to his Court and settles any number of trivial matters. Some of them, perhaps, could have been tended to by lesser members of his Court; but that decision is his to make.

When dawn breaks, he retires to bed. He, as King, has a large, well-decorated room that he can choose to use when he doesn't sleep with the rest of his Court. He hasn't used the room in months; tonight, he closes it, a signal to the others that he is not to be disturbed.

He lies awake for some time, thinking. Toby hates him now, of that he is absolutely certain. He did precisely what he wanted, so naturally, he now feels as though he's going to fly to pieces.

His heart has been broken before. This is somehow more painful - the finality of death had ended hope for him. Only now is he realizing that still having some small measure of hope is far more painful.

Tomorrow…tomorrow, he will go about his business. For the first time, since Toby came to San Francisco, it will be without keeping track of her. She could die tomorrow and he wouldn't know until someone saw it fit to pass the news on, likely days after the event.

The thought should be comforting, but instead, he causes him agony. He falls asleep only out of necessity, and his dreams are more troubling than they've ever been, full of her and her hurt.

It isn't until he leaves his room the next night that he realizes something rather crucial to the forgetting-Toby plan: he hasn't called off his spies yet.

Elaine skids up to him. "She's in trouble," she blurts out. "I tried to find you, I tried -"

"I was not to be disturbed," he says coldly. "Slow down. What's she done now?"

"Disturbed a nest of Redcaps."

He curses. Damn it to hell, he should have foreseen this. Couldn't some noble child get kidnapped so at least her self-destructiveness would have direction? "Where?" he says.

Elaine wordlessly hands him a sliver of wood. He feels it, and the world bending to it; it's all that he needs.

"Inform the others I will return by dawn," he says. Elaine wisely doesn't answer; he opens the shadows and steps through as she hastens away.

When he steps out of the shadows, Toby is, in fact, fighting a nest of Redcaps. He snarls and leaps on the nearest one. If she is killed -

It will not be his fault. He is not responsible for her stupidity. It will, however, feel like his fault.

By the time silence reigns, he has dispatched three Redcaps and is covered in blood. He's shaking his hand off in disgust when Toby slams him, facefirst, into the brick wall of their now-messy alley.

Cold steel pricks the back of his neck. "That's an interesting expression of gratitude."

"I was handling it."

"You were about to be eviscerated."

"And I'm sure you'd care." Toby hauls him forward and then slams him back again, blade still pointed unerringly at his throat. "I've never asked you how you find me before."

He smiles. "I'm sure you'd be absolutely fascinated by the information."

"Yeah, maybe." She looks him steadily in the eyes. "Stop this, Tybalt. I don't know what game you're playing and I want no part of it."

"Then kill me," he hears himself say.

She was standing perfectly still, but now, she freezes absolutely. "What?"

He will see this through to the end. "Kill me," he says, as though he's discussing the weather. "I'm clearly at your mercy."

The knife pricks his throat just enough to draw blood. "I'm not stupid enough to think you don't have something up your sleeve. And I don't want - I want to be left alone. No more showing up, no more sarcasm, no more taunts. You had your fun. You've had it for years."

"I truly enjoyed fourteen of them."

The knife cuts a bit deeper, but with a calm control Tybalt wasn't aware Toby really had. He can't help but wonder if that is due to his own ignorance, or if it's a new development. "Tybalt."

"October."

"I'm not playing this game anymore."

"Then don't," he says. He sees a solution, suddenly, one even Toby will bend to.

She blinks. "Excuse me?"

"Stop running into danger that you know will kill you, and you'll never see me."

Her eyes go wide. He feels a kind of vicious thrill at punching through her calm. "That's it?"

"Absolutely." He'll call Elaine off, he tells himself, and that will be the end of it.

"You're lying," Toby says distantly. Her eyes are unfocused, suddenly, and dreamy.

It occurs to Tybalt that he is bleeding in front of Amandine's daughter. "You have my word," he says sharply.

She shakes her head and focuses. "I - fine." She steps back. "Leave. Now."

"I'd advise you to do the same."

Toby just crosses her arms and looks at him.

He sighs, but he opens the Shadowed Roads and steps through them. He doesn't allow himself to look back.

The first thing he does when he returns is summon Elaine. "Tybalt," she says, eyes widening.

Ah, yes. The blood. "You are relieved of your duties," he says curtly. "Do not follow October any longer."

"Tybalt -"

"That's it," he snaps, and leaves her gaping in the hallway.

He needs to get out of these clothes. Immediately.

As soon as he's changed, however, his mind has worked its way around the Toby problem and presents him with a credible solution. He summons Elaine again. "You will continue to follow October," he says, "but do not report back to me unless she is in mortal danger. Understood?"

Elaine nods, then hesitates. "Tybalt. Is everything okay?"

He raises his eyebrows.

"…I'll go now," she says, and shifts into her feline form, leaping into the shadows.

He doesn't see October again for almost two months. Truth be told, he'd been hoping for six; but then, he'd also been hoping he wouldn't have to be the one to summon her.

Chapter 2

He's asleep when the tendrils of frost curl around him. He's awake when the wisp of icy cold tries to kill him.

Snarling, he shifts forms and takes stock of the situation. There are snow sprites everywhere. Awful little things; deadly, and absolutely not welcome in his Court. It's only a matter of happenstance that he is once again sleeping alone.

He runs under the bed. He'll never admit it later; it's not dignified. But he needs a place he can fling himself out of his body, awareness racing all through his Court until, finally, he encounters the tear.

It's more effort than it should be, requiring almost more energy than he has, to close the tear. Once it's closed, the whistling wind and icy cold disappears. Snow sprites cannot survive with no connection to the Snow Kingdoms.

How the tear was opened, and why, is a question for later. For now, he shifts back into human form and immediately leaves to take stock of what the Snow Kingdom has done to his Court.

He nearly runs into Raj in the hall. "Uncle," Raj says, throwing himself at Tybalt.

Tybalt allows him a few seconds before he pulls Raj away. "Not now," he says. "Find the injured. Tend to your duties."

Raj looks at him with wide eyes, but his shoulders move back and he nods. "Yes," he says, and hurries down the hall, looking much more like a Prince than a scared boy.

Good. Tybalt keeps moving.

To a stranger, the halls are labyrinthine and impossible to navigate. It's deliberate, though no one but the Cait Sidhe have wandered these halls for decades. To Tybalt, however, the halls are as clearly laid out as a grid would be to humans. Or changelings who -

No.

There are two injured, but none dead. Devoutly grateful though he is, it makes absolutely no sense to him. Leaving aside the impossibility, or extreme improbability, of ripping a hole in the universe - why come to his Court, if not to kill?

It's not a question he can answer. By the end of the night, sixteen hours after the attack, he's combed his territory for any clues, any signs of intent, and can find absolutely nothing. None of his lieutenants have, either. And - perhaps worst of all - Raj has been watching him for two hours now, obviously worried.

Tybalt cannot have his authority doubted. Not about anything, really, but especially not about this. He has been…not entirely himself, these past six months, less generous and more quick to anger than in the past. He knows that it can't continue. He also knows that he can't solve the mystery of this attack on his own.

But, to his annoyance, he knows who can.

"I'll be back with help," he tells Raj, and opens the Shadowed Roads.

Arriving at Toby's is easy. It's almost midnight, and he's exhausted, but he stands up straight and knocks firmly.

She opens the door holding a knife. Her eyes are wide and tired-looking, but otherwise, she looks exactly the same - down to the murderous expression.

"What," she says flatly, "are you doing here."

Tybalt raises his hands. "October, I -"

"Leave," she says.

But she doesn't slam the door, and Tybalt will be damned if he's not going to take that as a kind of olive branch. "My Court has been attacked," he says.

Whatever power she wielded to conceal her reactions from him the last time they met is gone now. She all but drops her jaw. "What?"

"Two are injured, none are dead," Tybalt says. "A hole was torn, opening into the Snow Kingdoms. I closed it."

"Oberon's balls, Tybalt, no wonder you look like death warmed over."

But she doesn't move. A heaviness settles in his stomach. He deserves that, he knows. "I've come to…request your assistance," he says. 'Beg for help' would be more accurate, but he's thankful to not have been brought that low yet. "I will be in your debt."

It's as though he brought a wall down between them. At his words, Toby stands aside. Immediately.

He'll wonder about that later. For now, he enters her apartment.

"Coffee," she says, going into the kitchen.

"It's only midnight," he says, but he follows.

"Not for me, jackass, for you," Toby says. She picks up the half-filled pot and grabs two mugs from the cupboard. "Fine, for me, too. But mostly for you." Holding the mugs by their handles, she pours two steaming cups and hands one to him. Hers, she adds her usual accoutrements to.

Tybalt is not accustomed to coffee. When he sips it, it's bitter. He knows better than to ask for anything to put in it.

When Toby turns around again, she looks even more tired than before. It's on the tip of Tybalt's tongue to comment on it, with an arch implication about all the coffee she drinks, but he's here to request assistance. He knows better.

"Let's sit in the living room," Toby says after a long, pained silence.

They settle across from one another, Toby on the couch and Tybalt in an uncomfortable armchair. He looks at Toby, knowing full well it will make her uncomfortable but incapable of stopping himself. He's hungry for her, hungry just to see her, cataloguing all the changes since they last saw one another. The last time she left his life, it was for fourteen years, not two months. He would be lying if he said this reunion was more strongly affecting than the first, but -

He has not yet managed to smother his regard.

It's Toby who breaks the silence. "I don't know much about the Snow Kingdoms," she says.

Her shoulders are hunched defensively. Tybalt sighs. He knows he can't put her at ease, so he just says, "I'm not hiring you for your expertise. There are many things about which you're uninformed. I'm hiring you because I know you can follow a trail to its conclusion."

"And die for trying," she mutters.

"No," Tybalt says sharply, before he can think better of it. When she lifts her gaze from the frankly appalling carpet to him, he forces himself to smile. "I'm very doubtful there's a need for such violence. It could simply be an error, a child learning his abilities."

"Right," Toby says skeptically. "You said it was a tear, Tybalt. Not a portal."

It would be extremely convenient for him were she less intelligent. In more ways than one. "If the invasion does, in fact, reflect a potential for mortal danger, I trust we will not be unarmed. But right now, I'm loathe to assume anything."

"We?"

Tybalt allows himself an imperious eyebrow raise. "Surely you don't expect me to sit back while you investigate. A King of Cats is not known for indolence."

"A King of Cats can stop talking about himself in the third person," Toby shoots back.

"As pleasant as you returning to your usual method of communication is, I would like an answer," Tybalt says. "I need to know if I'm going to be taking my request elsewhere."

"Where else?" Toby says absently. She tucks her hair behind her ears, then sighs. "Fine. I'm going to regret it, but fine."

He waits until she looks him in the eye to say, "Then I am in your debt, October."

"I know," she says. "I'm going to go grab a few things, and then we can go. Wait here." She sets her now-empty mug down and stands.

"You assume I'm going to take you to my Court?" he can't help but say.

"Well, that, or I'm going to be a shitty detective," Toby says. "I can't chase clues I can't see."

"It was clean when I swept it."

Toby's smile is narrow and bitter. "You're not me," she says, and disappears down the hall to her room.

She re-appears carrying a small duffel bag. "Let's go," she says, but she doesn't move closer than ten feet away from him.

"Toby."

"What?"

"I can't take you on the Shadowed Roads if you're over there."

She scowls, but steps forward jerkily until she's standing toe to toe with him. He doesn't look her in the eye, doesn't even look at her face - instead he rests his hands on her shoulders and pulls them into the shadows.

It's a brief journey, but as always, having Toby along is like carrying a boulder. Her worry and dread weigh her down until Tybalt's exhaustion is deepened even more. They finally stumble out, Tybalt closing the door and instinctively checking to make sure that everything is well. It's why he doesn't notice for far too long that they're in his room, and that Toby is frozen to the spot.

Damn it. "I apologize," he says as smoothly as he can, stepping away from her. "This is normally my room, but you may rest here if you have need."

The way Toby's eyeing him makes him…unhappy. "And you?"

"I will sleep with my Court," he says in a tone that he hopes shuts discussion down.

It does. She nods and drops the duffel, going to her knees to rifle through it. He doesn't comment on the knife she straps around her waist, or the one she tucks in her boot. "Okay," she says. "The tear…I can't access it, can I?"

"Unless you've gained the ability to traverse my Court with your mind, no," Tybalt says. "It exists in a place that is neither here nor anywhere else, precisely."

"Right." Toby shakes her head. "Damn - okay. I need to see where people were injured."

He leads her down the hall. Both the injuries occurred in their great room, an area sometimes situated in various San Francisco alleys, where he sleeps when he is in the company of his Court. The two injured parties in question, Renay and Alex, are still lying supine and in feline form where they were injured, albeit on cots and away from the blood that still stained the floor.

"Oak and ash, Tybalt, is anyone attending to them?"

"They'll heal," he says. To her, he must sound callous; but this certainty is what keeps his subjects alive, in the end. A King of Cats needs unshakable faith. It keeps the tunnels open and everyone breathing.

"I could hit you right now," she informs him acerbically.

He looks around, then back at her, expression cold. She realizes quickly what she's said, and takes a step back.

"You won't," he says, menace in his tone.

"Of course not," she says. "I wouldn't call in my favor for anything that stupid."

His flinch is minute, nothing that his subjects will detect. But Toby - Toby sees it and allows herself a slight smile before walking over to the first pool of blood. He watches her, helpless against what twists his heart at the return of her usual fire.

She just examines the blood, first, and then the two cats. "They can't shift, can they," she says, fingers hovering over them.

Her question is directed at Tybalt, though. "No."

"Right." She sighs. "You know, it would be so much simpler if the Cait Sidhe inhabited homes with objects. Belongings."

He nearly laughs at that. "It's not our way." Their belongings are hidden away, for the most part; Tybalt has no desire to show her where. It's not pertinent at this point.

"I know," she says. She stands and looks around, wandering the perimeter of the room, occasionally closing her eyes. He watches her in spite of himself. He knows that people have told her, and said of her, that she is more like Amandine than she thinks. He doesn't want to agree, but the proof has completed her circuit of the room and is looking at him frankly. "You know what I have to do next."

He left the pools of blood there for a reason. "Of course," he says.

He follows closely behind her when she kneels over the puddles of blood. She frowns up at him. "Quit hovering."

"Riding the blood here is not like doing so in the mortal world," he says, and holds out a hand. "Anchor yourself, October."

For once, she doesn't argue, just presses her palm against his. Her hand is warm, more calloused than it used to be. He'd desperately wish he wasn't holding proof of her increasingly difficult lifestyle, but if she stopped, she wouldn't be his Toby.

Not, he thinks acerbically as she dips a finger in the blood and raises it to her lips, that she's his anything.

Her hand tightens around his as she rides the blood, but aside from that she's utterly still. She's gotten better at it, he thinks - and not for the first time, he wonders how loose Elaine's definition of "life-threatening" is.

She comes out of it with a gasp, immediately pulling her hand away from his. "Right," she says, voice hoarse. She glances around, leading Tybalt to do the same; everyone is staring at them.

"This is the price of repairing our safety," Tybalt remarks to no one in particular.

They hear the menace, though, and everyone quickly goes back to lounging while pointedly not watching him and Toby.

"You didn't have to do that," Toby mutters. The not-quite-thanks that is acceptable to their kind hangs between them until Tybalt says, "Do you need to taste the other blood?"

"I should," Toby says, which isn't an answer. He follows her to the other pool, however, and watches as she tastes it, her hand once again gripping his.

This time, when she comes back to herself, she shakes her head, looking annoyed. "There's nothing there," she says. "Little - tendrils of ice that are alive - what are those?"

"Snow pixies," Tybalt says. "More dangerous than our kind, generally, and more vicious."

"Great. That's just great. Perfect news." Toby's disgust is dripping off of every word. "Well, they didn't exactly talk and reveal their master plan. And your - subjects - could feel the tear, but they couldn't do anything about it." She pitches her voice a little lower, though she has to know they can still be heard. "That helplessness wasn't pleasant."

"No," Tybalt says, "I'd assume it's not. Now…"

For a moment, just a moment, he loses the thread, swaying on his feet ever so slightly. Toby, damn her, notices and hops to her feet, looking alarmed. "Tybalt?"

He holds up a hand and forces himself to focus. "I will rest," he says, "when you have a lead for me."

"That's not going to happen," Toby says.

"Excuse me?"

"I said it's not going to happen." She wipes her bloodied fingers on her jeans and looks at him. "They came from the Snow Kingdoms, we know that much. That's it. The blood had nothing new, I can't scent any magic - our lead is the Snow Kingdoms."

He doesn't want that to be true. Oberon's - Oberon's everything, that's the last thing he wants to be true. But he knows full well Toby wouldn't lie to him. "Then I suppose we're taking a trip," he says, forcing lightness into his tone. "But right now, October, I require rest. Follow me, please."

He shifts into feline form before she can object. She glares down at him, but she has to know it's not dignified. He gives into temptation and rubs her ankles briefly, then sets off in the direction of his room. Forcing her to share would most likely make her break the deal, despite the fact that he doesn't want to let her out of his sight; but she doesn't have to know he intends to settle just outside her door.

"Great," she sighs when she enters his room. "A giant Cat King bed, just what I've always wanted." She turns to look down at him. "Get out of here, Tybalt. Wake me up when you no longer look like death."

He gives her the most disdainful look he can manage and pads out of the room. She shuts the door almost immediately after him, he notices smugly. He lies down just to the left of the door, well out of the way of anyone who'd try to traverse the halls but in the way of anyone who'd want to open the door, and stretches out.

He's not even aware of closing his eyes; he falls, very rapidly, into sleep.

In his feline form, his dreams are always a little sharper, a little wilder. He imagines being next to Toby, walking beside her, killing for her. He has before; if this pattern holds, he will again. But she will never look at him the way she does in the dream, with the naked esteem an equal holds for her chosen partner.

The dream makes waking up to see her staring down at him embarrassing. He rolls to his feet and hisses at her.

"Calm down," she says. "I didn't even step on you, which considering that you've decided to become a cat doormat, is really saying something."

She's speaking to him the way she speaks to her own mongrels. They are of his kingdom, obviously, and he vaguely takes umbrage at being addressed similarly, but hissing again would be undignified. He settles for lashing his tail and walking between her legs, into his room.

He shifts as she closes the door. He's surprised that she latches it, which might be why he has the confidence to smile at her as his clothing resolves itself around him. "Hello, October."

"You drool when you sleep," she says, not looking at him. "Are you ready to go?"

"I'd be interested to know how you think we're going to get there."

"How stupid do you think I am? I know you have access to the Snow Kingdoms. You're taking us."

"Dressed like that?" He arches an eyebrow. She's hardly in scandalous clothing, but it's also not suited for a freezing climate.

She flushes, but she sticks to stubbornness. "If you don't have something that'll fit me, make it fit me."

She has no need of knowing that he has clothes that would fit her in his closet - though admittedly, he doesn't have winter clothes. He sighs, making a show of it, then goes over to the closet. "You bathed, I trust?"

"I don't need you to watch my bathing habits, Tybalt."

"I can clean myself," he reminds her. "You, feeble as you are, need help."

"Just get me some winter gear, tabby."

She would not appreciate him laughing; Toby looks at him laughing at her jokes as him displaying his scorn, and he's never bothered to disprove her theory. He smothers his laugh and goes through his wardrobe, quickly enchanting some clothes.

"Do you have the magic to change them every day?" Toby says.

Her ignorance is appalling. "The Snow Kingdoms know no mortal dawn," he reminds her.

She flushes. "I knew that."

"Here," he says, and hands her a long, thick, fur-lined coat, mittens, a hat, a scarf, and three pairs of long underwear. She's standing right next to the bed and could put it all down, but instead she holds it in her arms, glaring at him over the pile.

He does laugh then; he can't help it. "Put it down, October," he says. "I have bags for travel, you know."

"We can't wheel something through the snow."

"I never said we were going to." He reaches into his closet and pulls out one of his charmed canvas bags, holding it open. "Put your duffel in here."

"I can carry it."

"Now is not the time for foolish pride, October."

She sighs as though he's placed an unbearable burden on his back rather than removing one, but she picks up her duffel and puts it in the bag. It slips in without a problem; the bag's size, of course, doesn't change a bit. It's still roughly the size of a knapsack.

"We'll need to depart in the winter clothing," Tybalt says. He sets the bag down on his bed and gets two changes of clothes from his closet. Toby doesn't seem to notice that one is her size, even as he folds them all and puts them in the bag.

"I wish we knew more," Toby mutters.

"Alas, your skills aren't strong enough."

Tybalt means it to hurt her, and it does. She flinches, and then glares. "Do you have a phone?"

He raises his eyebrows at her.

"Right. Can you send a messenger to make sure the Luidaeg knows I'm leaving?"

"Of course," he says. "Have you informed your liege?"

"I called him before I left my apartment."

"He'll be angrier the longer you're away," Tybalt says. The prospect doesn't exactly disappoint him.

"I'm doing what I need to do," Toby says grimly.

This is a job for her, which is currently all too clear. "Naturally," he says. He tucks a few bits of wood in the bag, to transform into snow transport once they've arrived. The road should be clear, but the Snow Kingdoms are anything but predictable. "Are you ready?"

"Do you have any idea how many times I've run off for days without this kind of preparation?"

"Days…or years," he says. He picks up the bag and walks past her and her indignant splutters. "Come to the main room. I'll dispatch the messenger and we'll be off." He continues out of the room, trusting she'll follow.

She does, though she's loud and reluctant about it. As they make their way to more populous areas of his Court, however, she quiets. She's learning.

Not that it matters; she won't be back.

When they get back to the great room, Elaine hands him a bundle of blankets and a small pot. "A brownie blessed it," she says. "I called in a favor. You won't run out of food."

"Well done," he says, tucking both in the bag. He looks over at Toby, eyebrows raised. "Put on your coat." He himself already has.

She puts on the coat, scarf, and various other bits meant to insulate her from the cold. She looks a bit ridiculous by the time she's done, but his court knows better than to mock her. When they're finished, Tybalt opens the Shadow Roads, says, "We will return with the solution to our safety," and takes Toby's hand, pulling her through.

It is a long journey, for the Shadow Roads, and by the end of it Toby is shivering. That isn't made better by them stepping into an icy cold cave in the Snow Kingdoms.

"Maeve's tits," Toby says, shivering.

Tybalt himself is unaffected. Given enough time, he will be chilled by the Snow Kingdoms, but it takes a long while. He pulls one of the shards of wood out of his bag and makes it grow, passing his hand over it so it becomes a pile of burning wood on the cave floor.

"Warm yourself," he says. She let go of his hand as soon as they stepped out of the shadows, and he has to force himself to refrain from warming her with his body. It would help if he was along her back and her front was warmed by the fire, but he's well aware of what her reaction to that would be.

She nods and drops to her knees, still shivering in spite of her winter gear. The Shadow Roads are considerably colder than almost anywhere in the Snow Kingdoms for one who is not Cait Sidhe.

Gradually, her shivering slows and then stops. Tybalt waits for quite some time until she finally looks up at him. "Do you even know where we are?"

"More or less," Tybalt says. "We cannot transport ourselves directly to Jehan's court; a certain level of circumlocution is required. It's three days' journey from here."

"Let me guess," Toby says, looking more like her usual prickly self. Her ridiculously large hat somewhat ruins the effect. "They're testing us by making us travel for three days. If we die, it'll prove we aren't worth an audience."

"Precisely," Tybalt says.

Toby sighs. "I guess we'd better get moving, then." She stands.

Tybalt extinguishes the fire and tucks the wood back in their bag. It's snowing gently outside; no part of the Snow Kingdoms has the kind of howling winds and cruel climate that are found in the mortal world. "If you become too cold, tell me," he says.

"Sure," Toby says, but her tone of voice is absent, and he knows perfectly well that she won't do it. It will be up to him to monitor how she feels and stop them when necessary.

He leads them outside. The cave opens to a road, wide and clear of snow; snow melts as soon as it touches the cobblestones, though they give off no detectable heat. Toby squints and looks around, taking in their surroundings with practiced ease. "It'll be hard to get away if anything comes across us," she says, a wave of her hand taking in the snowy meadows and trees dripping with crystalline ice.

"Yes," Tybalt says.

She shoots him a look that is almost amused. "So we'll fight them, and probably ruin our clothes in the process."

"It's possible," Tybalt says. He feels compelled to add, "But unlikely. The Snow Kingdoms are largely safe."

She catches the uncertainty in his tone before Tybalt even realizes he's displayed it. "Which makes the attack make even less sense," she says, looking around. Tybalt does the same, trying to see the world through her eyes. It is beautiful, in a sense; clean, white snow, gentle sunshine, snowflakes falling. Icicles decorate the trees, and birds and white rabbits occasionally make their presence known.

But his own Court is warm and close, populated by his subjects. The Snow Kingdoms are too clean, too pristine, for his taste.

"Right," she says. "Well, let's get a move on. I'd like to sleep in an actual building sooner rather than later." She starts walking.

They only walk for a few minutes before Tybalt starts becoming agitated. The Snow Kingdoms' silence has always weighed on him. He makes it twenty minutes, if that, before he says, "You've spent the past two months well, I trust?"

Toby's surprise is evident in the line of her shoulders, the very slight stutter of her step. "I don't see how that matters."

"Indulge my curiosity."

"You're paying me," Toby mutters. "Fine. I've been fine. Resting."

"I'll ask you not to lie."

"I'm not."

"Your eyes belie your words, October."

"Is that your smartass way of saying I look tired?"

Tybalt lets his lack of an answer speak for him.

"I had a case," Toby says finally. "Missing wife. Human. She was dead."

He knows without her explicitly telling him that he won't get any more details no matter how much he pries. "The affairs of humans are frequently distasteful," he says finally.

"Typical snobbery," Toby says.

"Ah, yes," Tybalt says. He can feel himself getting a more familiar footing. "It is only snobbery that makes me think this, not simply awareness of the realities of the world. Someone as enlightened as you, of course, is well aware of this."

"Are you trying to piss me off?"

The mild curiosity of her tone holds an implied threat. She is not looking at him, and even her peripheral vision is hindered by her hat, so he allows himself a smile. "My dear October, what could possibly make you think that?"

"You're the reason I used to think all Cait Sidhe are assholes," Toby says thoughtfully.

"That lack of nuance in your thinking comes from both parents, I imagine."

"Doesn't explain your assholishness."

"Perhaps not," Tybalt says. He can barely feel the cold, warmed as he is by this exchange.

"We're going back to before after this, you know," Toby says.

She says it quietly, but the stillness of the Snow Kingdoms betrays her, making it sound as loud as a shout. Tybalt cannot answer for long enough that he knows it's obvious he's affected. He hopes she does not suddenly gain the ability to divine the direction of his thoughts. "Believe me, I find association with you tiresome," he says finally. "Sadly, you've managed to insinuate yourself into our world as a reliable detective. If only other, more capable beings decided to do such demeaning work, I would have no need of your services."

Toby's laugh is sharp and not a little angry. "Right," she says.

Pointing out that he only speaks the truth would bring the point a bit too far home, so instead he stays silent.

He forces himself to become accustomed to the silence after that. He has taken this three-day trek before; few people can make the Shadow Roads impossible to traverse, but Jehan's control over his domain is absolute. Tybalt has always grudgingly admired it, but right now, it is…inconvenient.

Toby keeps grumbling about not knowing what time it is. Tybalt has an impeccable internal clock, and he occasionally tells her that it hasn't been half as long as she thinks; her acerbic replies are rewarding. Aside from that, however, they don't communicate until Tybalt says, "It has been six hours. We should eat."

Toby looks around. "Do we just stop in the road?"

Tybalt steps off the road and looks around. "I'd be greatly obliged for a place upon which to set my sustenance," he tells the snow.

He is rewarded with a table and two short, low benches. "Really, October," he says, looking at her somewhat stunned expression, "You needn't display your ignorance." He unshoulders their bag and reaches into it, calling the pot and two bowls from its depths. The pot warms to the touch when he sets it down, soup appearing inside.

The soup is steaming when she finally steps off the path. "I shouldn't even ask why the soup isn't melting the table, should I."

"You see impossible things every day," Tybalt says. "Impossible to the human eye, anyway. Does your changeling nature force you to fight against what you observe?"

"My changeling nature will fight to observe you whimpering in the snow if you keep it up," Toby says.

He smiles with too many teeth. "Perhaps."

She ignores him, reaching out instead and picking up the pot, pouring half the soup into her bowl. They lack utensils, but they don't really need them; the soup will be nourishing but also thin enough to drink.

Almost in spite of himself, he watches her as she eats. She closes her eyes when she drinks the soup, nostrils flaring. "I'd give anything for coffee," she says ruefully.

"That, I cannot help you with," Tybalt says. He reaches into the canvas bag anyway, though, and to his surprise, he calls instant packets of coffee to his fingers.

"But apparently Elaine can," he says. "Here."

"No water," Toby says grimly. He's about to suggest melting some snow in her bowl when she tears the packet open and pours the crystals down her throat.

"Truly, you're the problem-solver of the century," he says dryly.

She frowns at him and tucks the package in her pocket. "Like you had a better idea?"

"I had several."

"And they were?"

"There's no fun in that, October," he says, and goes back to sipping his soup.

They pack everything up quickly enough, and the table and benches disappear as soon as they step back on the path. Toby eyes the empty space as they start walking again.

"You grew up in the Summerlands," Tybalt says.

It isn't a question, but she nods. "I left them a long time ago."

"I remember." For the changeling snake Devin and his 'protection'. The old anger warms him.

"I got out of that," she says sharply. "At the time, I had my reasons."

"Ah. Yes."

He's not expecting Toby to stop dead and whirl around to face him. It brings home the fact that she habitually has been walking a bit ahead of him. "We are not having this conversation."

"We'll make very bad time if you insist on stopping to punctuate a point."

"Don't bring up Home," she says. "Just don't. You understand?"

He looks at her, trying to see her with fresh eyes. She's clearly upset, but beyond that…she's grieving. He hates it, hates that she thinks that place is worthy of her grief, but he knows he cannot stop her. And for once, he doesn't think pushing her would be beneficial to either of them. "Very well," he says. "Now stop dragging your feet, unless you really want to take four days for a reasonable three-day journey."

She sighs, but turns around and starts walking again. He follows her. The silence may grate at him, but his attempts to punctuate it have been less than successful; for now, he will hold his tongue.

He stays silent for the entire rest of the day, in fact. Toby curtly demands more coffee after three hours, and after two more they stop for dinner - more soup, though it tastes subtly different this time. They continue walking for two hours after that, until Toby is dragging her feet and looks reluctant to continue.

Not, of course, that he has any desire to point that out to her. "We'll make camp here," he says when they come across a weeping willow. Or so it would be called in the mortal world; this one's leaves and branches are made of a light blue ice that shimmers and coils all the way down to the snow.

"Make camp?"

Tybalt walks off the path. "A shelter, if you please," he tells the snow. It rises up beneath the branches of the weeping willow, a small, igloo-like shelter just large enough for two sleeping adults, provided they don't expect to be able to do more than sit up inside it.

"You've got to be kidding me," Toby says.

"I'm afraid not," Tybalt says. "Do you have anything to do, or should we sleep?"

"I'm going to have to wipe myself down with snow at some point."

Tybalt smirks. "Your filth will please Jehan," he says. "He prefers his guests to be bedraggled upon their arrival."

"So he's never liked you?"

"No."

"Right," Toby says. "Okay. Fine." She strips out of her winter clothes, shivering, and down to her long underwear. Tybalt has the bag ready; she shoves everything at him, then says, "Oh, right. Blankets."

"Quite," Tybalt says. He sets them out inside, one spread across the snow and one lying on top of it. He expects her displeasure in just a few seconds.

He gets it right on time. She ducks into the shelter and says, "What the fuck?"

"A shelter," Tybalt says.

"Why in Oberon's name do you think I'm going to accept this?"

"The blankets have an enchantment on them," Tybalt says. "They'll keep us warm and will prevent the snow from soaking through. But sharing body heat is practical." As he speaks, he removes his own winter clothing and sets it in the bag. He then anchors the bag outside - the Snow Kingdoms will not allow thievery - and goes inside the shelter.

It's comfortable enough; Tybalt has never feared small spaces. He does somewhat fear the woman next to him, though, especially since she brought her knives in and put them on the far end of the blanket, inches from her hand.

"Toby." Tybalt pulls the upper blanket up, lying down. The blankets are large enough that he doesn't need to worry about his feet or head encountering snow, and Toby will have no problem at all, but she stays upright, glaring at him.

"You're up to something."

"Yes," Tybalt says. "Trying to find out how a hole was torn in the universe, and why it went, of all places, into my Court."

"You know what I mean."

"Suit yourself," Tybalt says, and closes his eyes.

It is, perhaps, not wise to fall asleep with his neck exposed to October. He does it anyway, feeling a perverse desire to dare her to do something to him.

It's highly unlikely that she'd successfully kill him before he woke up, anyway.

He wakes in the middle of what would be the night, were they in a place that bent to such notions. For one long, extremely odd moment, he's not sure why he's awake; then he realizes that he's lying on his back, and that the blanket is not the only thing covering him. His arms are wrapped around Toby, and she's breathing gently, head on his chest, fingers tucked under his shoulders.

The depth of his ability to love another being ceased to surprise him centuries ago. The depth of his ability to love Toby, even, has been a constant of his life for enough human years to no longer be remarkable.

His breath catches anyway. Not enough to wake her up, luckily, but enough that he closes his eyes against the sheer force of what rushes through him.

His self-discipline saves him from any incident. He keeps his eyes closed, and eventually his emotions are banked enough that he can rest again, instinctual contentment warring with a deep feeling of dread, both chasing him into sleep.

When he wakes up some four hours later, she is, impossibly, still asleep. She's slid to the side a bit, so that her head is tucked against his shoulder, but her legs are still under and around his, one arm flung over his chest.

She is not graceful in sleep the way she is in movement, but there's a certain charm about the awkward ways her limbs are twisted. Of course, he thinks; the Cait Sidhe appreciate such positions.

But he cannot just lie with her forever, much though he may want to. He strokes her hair, then clears his throat. "Did you have a change of heart, October?"

"Mrmph." She twitches a little.

"October. Toby." He cups his hands around her shoulders and shakes her lightly. "Wake up. We have a long way to go today."

He hears her breathing change, and she raises her head, blinking sleepily. He sees the exact moment her eyes focus and she realizes what she's doing; a fraction of a second later, she's launching herself off of him, almost tilting into the snow.

For a second they look at one another, Toby with a wide-eyed shock that he knows will turn to anger, himself with a look that he's well aware carries more than a hint of sarcasm. Finally she says, voice hoarse, "Coffee."

"The pack's just outside," he says.

She grabs it and sticks her hand in. He's a little surprised when she pulls it out with a packet of instant coffee.

"Wait," he says when she tears it open and holds it up to her mouth. He pulls a bowl out of the pack and puts some snow in it, passing his hand over it to heat the snow.

She doesn't stop glaring at him, but she does say, "You didn't have to."

"I shudder to watch you devour them," he says, and hands the bowl to her.

In short order, they're dressed and walking down the road again. Toby looks around more today, keeping her scarf up over her lips but observing the territory they walk past with a detective's interest.

"How much do you know about the Snow Kingdoms?" Tybalt says after they've been walking for an hour.

"Not as much as I'm sure you think I should," she shoots back.

"Your education has been lacking."

Toby responds with a stony silence.

Tybalt sighs, loudly and theatrically.

"They haven't exactly been relevant."

"Spoken like a true changeling."

"Get bent, Tybalt." She speeds up.

He hurries after her. "October."

"No."

"Jehan is a Daoine Sidhe," Tybalt says.

She freezes, shoulders stiffening. When he's drawn abreast of her again, she goes back to walking. "Fine," she says. Her voice is more brittle than the ice dripping from every plant they pass. "Talk."

"He rules a realm of races that have nothing to do with him," Tybalt says. He feels himself settling into something more comfortable, his voice taking on a cadence of education. He hopes Toby doesn't figure out that he's talking to her as he would to Raj; but then, she's never met Raj, or seen Tybalt with his Court for any length of time.

He explains the snow sprites, the Amarok, the Yetis. Toby snorts at that, which he assumes is due to her overexposure to the humans; her reactions like that usually are. "But there are many who simply choose to live in the Snow Kingdoms," Tybalt says. "There are goblins, pixies, hobs, all adapted to live in icy climes."

"Huh," Toby says. It's a singularly unintelligent-sounding noise, but he knows from experience that she's filed it all away in memory. "But - correct me if I'm wrong - it doesn't sound like anything's really here that has the power to rip a hole in reality."

"No," Tybalt says. "Even Jehan can only create doorways, not…tears."

Were he actually teaching Raj, he would have to stop and explain the difference between a hole in reality and the tear he'd felt; but Toby is more than informed enough to not need that kind of help. She sighs. "I guess it would be asking too much for this to be a nice, straightforward mystery."

"Naturally," he says, feeling some small measure of amusement in spite of himself.

"So we meet Jehan," she says. "Then what happens?"

"It's safe to assume that whatever's causing this is based in his court -"

"No," she cuts him off. "It's safe to assume that whatever's causing this is probably based in his court. We'll start there. But that's most likely not where we'll end up."

"Are you judging that based on your reasonable expectations, or cynicism?"

"Little of column A, little of column B." She sighs when she looks at his nonplussed expression. "Do you just never talk to humans?"

"I try to avoid it," he says.

"You hate them," she says. "I mean, it's obvious."

"Is it?"

"You hate me," she adds. "Anything that's not pureblood Faerie, you hate."

"You've become awfully presumptuous," Tybalt says.

But he doesn't deny it, and she takes very obvious notice of it. He could attempt to correct her perception - probably should, really. He finds he doesn't want to.

"We will find the source of the trouble at Jehan's court," he says instead.

"Bet you we won't." She says it carelessly, and stiffens as soon as she realizes what she's let slip. It's too late, though, and obvious that she knows it. "Terms?"

He considers it. "You seem to enjoy company while you sleep, even when that company is of startlingly low quality."

"Tybalt -"

"You spend a night in my Court," he says, smiling slowly. "With me, of course. I don't want your life, or anything else that might be on offer. Just a night."

She turns a rather fetching, and murderous, shade of purple before answering with gritted teeth, "Fine."

He can smell her anger, sharp and clear in the winter air. He breathes in deeply, savoring it. "Done," he says.

They don't speak for some time after that.

He doesn't allow it to distract him. When they solve this - which they will, as it's extremely improbable that anything with the power to tear its way into his Kingdom is lurking somewhere outside Jehan's court - he will call for payment on his bet. He'll use it to discomfit her, and she might hate him for it, but he'll gain some small amount of amusement.

In the meantime, he'll look forward to it. The mechanics of solving a mystery matter little to him.

They stop that night after more walking than they accomplished the day before. He suspects that Toby is more or less being fueled by anger at him, but if it results in them making good time, then he's not going to complain.

They eat, Tybalt erects their shelter, and they both climb in. Tybalt lies down immediately, stretching and smiling at Toby. "Surely you're not going to sleep sitting up?"

"I might," she says.

"October."

Toby stares at him, unimpressed.

He raises the edge of the blanket. "I didn't engage your services so that you would limit your own ability to work out of sheer stubbornness."

"Bastard," she mutters, but she lies down, stiff as a board. Tybalt lays the blanket over her, then says, "We could skip the part where we pretend you won't end up pressed against my side, if you like."

"Believe me when I say that has nothing to do with the fact that it's you."

"Ah," Tybalt says. "As you wish."

He wakes up two hours after falling asleep, and she's pressed against him, breathing softly, fingers occasionally twitching on his chest. She's not a very restful sleeper, but all of her movements are towards him, not away from him. When he shifts them so that he's curled around her, she sighs a little in her sleep and presses back against him.

He'll bear her anger in the morning, with all its increasing complexities and ambiguities. Right now, he closes his eyes and threads his fingers through hers.

When he wakes up in the morning, Toby's not in the shelter. He sighs, shakes himself, and goes outside.

They're both a bit grimy by now, so he's not surprised to see Toby sitting behind her coat, washing with snow. "You have to be freezing," he says.

"I am, but I'm going to be clean."

Her tone allows for no argument. Tybalt sighs and says, "Well, far be it from me to keep you from grooming," and shifts. He goes back in the shelter and pushes the blankets into a kind of nest, then begins cleaning himself.

"Are you - oh," Toby says a little while later, poking her head into the shelter.

Tybalt turns his head to glare at her, then stalks out of the shelter past her and shifts back into his human form. "Are you hungry?"

"No."

"Let's go, then," he says, and picks up the pack.

After an hour of walking, he says, "We should arrive midday tomorrow."

"How do you know this path so well?"

"I've taken it before," he says. "And I don't forget things, as a general rule. I'm not a changeling, after all."

Toby snorts. "That's not your best shot at me."

"I'll have plenty of time to improve." Tybalt searches his memory, trying to think of what else he needs to tell Toby. He should warn her about how her…attitude…will affect how she's treated, but he thinks she'll most likely be more effective if he doesn't attempt to curb her unusual methods.

And he can't ignore the fact that watching her annoy everyone around her is extremely satisfying.

"What's going on in there?" Toby says.

She fails at sounding casual. "Just planning strategy," he says.

"Mind sharing with the class?"

"Jehan is a traditionalist."

It's to her credit that she immediately draws the correct conclusion. "And you think I'll piss him off."

"You have a talent for it."

She sighs. He watches her in the dull light, noticing the way she doesn't bother brushing the snowflakes off the edges of her hat anymore. "So what do I need to do?"

"Ordinarily I'd tell you to adhere to the etiquette you learned from your mother."

"Seriously? What etiquette is that, exactly?"

"Let's not play games, October."

"Fine. The etiquette of surviving in the Summerlands, and not the finer points of wandering around, mumbling crazily. So I should pull a dress out of my ass and curtsey my way into his good graces?"

Tybalt waits.

"Or, I should piss him off as much as I've ever done with anyone, because he can't - or won't, you tell me - turn us away."

He smiles.

"If you're a bloodhound, I'm an attack dog," she says, but she doesn't sound that angry about it.

There are several things he could say, but somehow, none of them seem entirely appropriate. Finally he says, "Don't be ridiculous. Attack dogs don't talk back."

"Oh, please. And you don't?"

"I'm a King, October. You're simply a mouthy underling."

"One whose help you need," she says sweetly. "One you came begging to."

He isn't aware of moving. One moment they're walking, and the next he's in front of her, grasping her shoulders tightly. The loss of control would be concerning, but only she inspires it, and that ability to provoke is exactly why he engaged her help.

"I asked you," he says quietly, "because you are the only person who does what you do. Do not make me regret that. Please."

He watches insult warring with something else on her face. "Tybalt," she says finally. "I'm not going to - I said I'd fix this. I don't want your Court in danger any more than you do. What needs doing, I'll do it, okay?"

"Of course," Tybalt says. "But you can't possibly blame me for not trusting that your common sense will win out over your personality."

"Can it, Tybalt," she says, and roughly shrugs off his hands, striding forward.

He wants to make her listen, wants to do - something. But he knows it's all a bad idea. He burned that bridge, quite deliberately. Instead he, as always, shakes his head and follows her.

There are precious few people Tybalt would admit this to, but he hates silence and will go to great lengths to avoid it. But with Toby, he can't keep a conversation going, not anymore. Once it was easy: taunting her, needling her. Connecting with her, if on a superficial level. Now, though, he fights against the urge to admit he's wronged her, along with a thousand other things he wants to say.

It's dramatic and ridiculous, but he doesn't know how to avoid it, especially not when he remembers the years he spent viciously fighting all logic telling him she was dead.

"So we meet Jehan tomorrow," Toby says that night, shaking out the blankets in the shelter.

"Yes," Tybalt says. "Only the snow keeps us from seeing the beginnings of the city."

"This is a weird place," Toby admits. She shrugs out of her winter clothes, then climbs inside. "The Summerlands -"

"Endlessly hypocritical as they are -"

"Freak me out less, I think," she says, giving him a sharp look.

Tybalt lies down. "Half a day," he says. "Jehan's court is much the same as any knowe in the Divided Courts."

He's surprised when Toby laughs. "Here's some free advice: don't sound that disdainful when we actually see the guy."

"I don't intend to," Tybalt says, offering her a smile.

She smiles back for a single moment, but then abruptly looks away. "Right," she says, and lies down.

She's four feet away from him, more than enough space that even with the blanket pulled over her, she's very obviously cold. He sighs. "October…"

"Don't."

"You don't like being cold," Tybalt says. "And you woke up with me."

"Can it, cat."

Tybalt stretches an arm out, just brushing her hair. "You have my word that I will not mention it when we leave the Snow Kingdoms," he says.

What he doesn't say is how he's planning to grant them privacy to speak with one another once they reach Jehan's court.

"Fine," she snaps. She rolls over so abruptly Tybalt grunts in surprise, stiffly pushing herself against him.

"Relax," he suggests, tucking his arm around her.

"You relax," she shoots back.

"My dear October, I couldn't be more comfortable."

She thumps his chest with the heel of his hand. "This is only so I don't freeze to death," she says.

She actually does relax a little more when he brings the blanket up. "Of course."

"And because I could still…kill you."

He's going to answer when he realizes she's abruptly dropped asleep. It's disturbingly easy for him to follow.

The next morning, he's awakened by her moving against him. Pointedly.

"Toby?" He lifts his head and looks down at her. She's sleeping, though, breathing patterns and heart rate confirming it. He doesn't know what she's dreaming of, aside from some man who's not him, but he knows he's going to get menaced with at least one knife soon if he doesn't wake her up. So he grabs her, pulls her away from him, and shakes her. "Toby. Wake up."

She goes still and blinks at him. "Tybalt?"

He doesn't sigh in relief, but it's a near thing. "I don't know what you were dreaming of," he says, "but you were certainly enjoying yourself."

She scowls at him, turning red, and then wordlessly leaves their shelter.

Tybalt gives himself a few seconds to calm down before following.

He spots the city before Toby does, but she makes it extremely obvious when she sees it, gasping and saying, "Oberon's balls."

It's a massive, impossible sculpture of ice and snow, and for a moment Tybalt is pleased that he can watch Toby stare at it. Huge ice trees grow along the city walls, and the ice shimmers with a rainbow of colors. The effect is truly beautiful - but Tybalt knows Toby wouldn't appreciate him spotlighting her naiveté.

"It's beautiful," he agrees. "And, of course, deadly."

"Of course," she says. "Tybalt -"

"Yes?"

"Nothing," she says finally.

He suspects it's far from nothing, but he doesn't say anything as they approach the city. Neither of them looks particularly put together, but before being granted an audience with Jehan, they'll be given the opportunity to change. He says nothing until they wind their way through pristine, empty streets, and approach the castle walls.

"I am Tybalt, King of Cats," he tells the guard. "This is my companion, Sir October Daye of Shadowed Hills."

He notices Toby's surprise at the informality of the addresses, but she wisely doesn't voice it. It isn't until they're led wordlessly to a single large, warm room, and the door is shut, that she says, "'Companion' has a specific meaning here, doesn't it."

He can't keep himself from smiling. "Perceptive of you to notice."

Toby clenches her jaw. "You're a bastard."

"True." But some of the hatred has gone out of her voice, he can't help but notice.

"Fine," she says. "What are we doing next?"

"Jehan will summon us when he's ready for an audience, which could be in five minutes or two days."

"So until then we have to dress up."

The sour expression on her face makes Tybalt laugh. "The Snow Kingdoms do not force their visitors to do extra work," he says. "Go to the closet. They find overuses of magic unseemly."

She looks dubious, but she goes over to the closet as instructed. He watches with enjoyment as her expression changes. "Three spider silk dresses? That's -"

"Yes," Tybalt says before she can mention cost. "Bathe and put one on."

"Will the water be cold?"

"Go check," Tybalt says. The bath is behind a screen. He most likely won't be able to avoid hearing her ablutions, which is…maddening.

"Oh," she says in surprise when she dips a toe in.

"You may use it first," he says, and lounges on the bed in a picture of indifference as she tosses her old clothes in a pile to the left of the screen.

"How much freedom will he give us in investigating, do you think?"

She would talk as she bathes. "Unless he has a hand in it, as much as we need."

"That's a pretty big 'unless'."

"If he does have a hand in it, we are going to have an extraordinarily difficult time accomplishing what we need to accomplish. As I'm sure you know."

"Great," she says. "I can't wait."

"I count on your excitement," he says.

It's a lie, but she doesn't know that. She snorts, and silence falls. Well, silence but for the sounds of her skin and the water moving, but he's doing his best not to think about that.

She bathes quickly and comes out wrapped in a silk robe. "This isn't warm or practical," she says. She's as dry as a towel will make her - even Faerie has some mundane aspects - but the robe hides very little, and does nothing to keep him from noticing her nipples pushing at the fabric.

He looks away hastily. "Do you really expect practicality from a knowe in our lands?"

"Fair point," she says. There's some ambiguous discomfort in her voice that he really doesn't want to address. "Anyway, bathroom's free."

It's a casual, mortal phrase, and it brings him back to himself quickly. "Do at least brush your hair," he says, ducking behind the screen.

"Hah hah," she says.

He continues, "The Snow Kingdoms prize control and endurance. Their climate is harsh, and they are frequently unchanging for centuries. Many of them are cruel as a way of life. We will need to tread carefully."

"Let me guess, they hate changelings."

"They prize adaptability. They hate some changelings."

"Right. So why did you claim we were…together?"

"For both our protection," Tybalt says as he scrubs himself down quickly. "We'll be granted a certain measure of privacy, and we won't be separated."

"Holding tight to the apron strings?"

"You cannot possibly believe separating when this is happening is wise."

"That was a joke, Tybalt."

Tybalt finishes bathing by ducking his soapy hair under the water. When he climbs out and begins drying off, he says, "Even so, we need to stay together. Much though I've been amused by your habit of running of half-cocked and not informing anyone about what your intentions are, you are unfamiliar with the Snow Kingdoms."

"And I need to toe the line, yeah, I get it."

He's not sure she does, and is tempted to bring up her time under Simon Torquill's spell - but his anger at her disappearing is slowly fading, and alienating her right now would hardly be wise. "Good," he says, and puts on his own robe, walking over to the closet. He doesn't look at her; discretion, right now, seems wise. When he's dressed in white spider silk trousers and an equally white shirt, he turns to her.

She's wearing one of the spider silk gowns and looking fixedly at a spot to the right of the closet, face flushed. The gown is a pale gray that offsets her eyes and dark hair nicely, and makes her figure look - more exceptional than it is, Tybalt thinks firmly. "You look passable," he says. "Though your hair is still a nightmare."

She scowls at him. "It's still wet."

"Ah, of course. When it dries, I'm sure it will be worthy of the Snow Kingdoms courts."

"You're a dick."

"Who is, for the time being, the light of your life."

Toby looks so exquisitely pained that it's an honest effort not to laugh. "Now," he says, "we wait."

"Tell me we'll be allowed to move around after being received."

"Assuming Jehan doesn't throw us out, yes."

"You keep saying stuff like that. Could you at least pretend we're going to be given the freedom to investigate?"

"You may find this difficult to believe, October, but I do try not to lie to you."

He doesn't get a response, but she does make a face and look away.

Their bed is fine and has more blankets than Tybalt thinks they'll need, but everything else is ice. As with everywhere in the Snow Kingdoms, the ice has a shimmering, translucent quality. He can tell from the way Toby acts that it discomfits her; no area in the Summerlands has such ice, and she is, despite her association with Shadowed Hills and Faerie in general, overexposed to humanity. And a San Francisco native, which most likely doesn't help with not being comfortable with snow.

It forces him to affect an aura of great boredom, which, oddly, helps calm his own worries. He'd thank Toby, if he thought it wouldn't get him punched. As it is, he simply maintains his calm as best as he can and tries to act as though being in a room with few furnishings and no amusements is a habit of his.

In a startlingly brief amount of time, a page arrives to their room. "Sir, Your Highness," he says.

Tybalt raises an eyebrow. "Yes?"

"His Highness Jehan of Frostmore has requested your presence in his throne room."

"Lovely." Toby appears at Tybalt's side and tucks her hand into his arm. "You can lead us there."

The page doesn't appear to notice the reluctance and sarcasm in her voice, which is probably for the best. He nods and says, "Follow me, please."

"Well done," Tybalt murmurs. He places his hand atop Toby's; she stiffens, but doesn't protest.

He can't actually deny that part of him is going to greatly enjoy needling her. It's one of the few outlets available to him in this place, and he's hardly going to waste it. He doesn't mock her, however, preferring discretion, given the page's presence.

The way to the throne room is brief; the Snow Kingdoms don't believe in the unnecessary twisting of reality that the other Divided Courts so love. It gives Tybalt precious little time to wind himself up, which is probably for the best.

They are led to approach the throne when they reach the throne room. It has all the typical opulence of a Faerie throne room, the ice throwing glare sharp enough to make even Tybalt narrow his eyes a little. When they reach the dais upon which Jehan's throne sits, Tybalt drops into a deep bow. "Your Highness," he says, "it is, as always, a pleasure."

"But you are not here on matters of pleasure," Jehan says.

He is, technically, Daoine Sidhe. But his skin is white as snow, and frost lines the fine bones of his face. His voice is as thin and brittle as the first ice storm of a winter.

"No," Tybalt says honestly. "Myself and my companion, Sir Daye, come on business."

"Ah," Jehan says. "What business?"

Tybalt squeezes the top of Toby's hand very slightly. She takes it as the signal he meant it to be and says, "Your Highness, four days ago, a hole was torn into Tybalt's Kingdom. I searched the knowe and found no signs of magic, no blood spilled, no trace of who might have done it. But frost goblins came through and did their usual mischief, so we decided to come to the Snow Kingdoms and see if we could ascertain the origin of the tear."

"Portals opening is hardly unusual," Jehan says.

"No," Toby says. It's obvious to Tybalt how she's fighting to keep her voice level, but he doubts anyone else would even notice. "But a tear in reality is."

"That's true enough." A thin, cold thread of amusement winds through his tone. "I would be remiss in my duties as a liege of Faerie if I attempted to block an investigation. Tybalt, Sir Daye, you have my full support."

Tybalt has been watching the throne the whole time. He blinks, and suddenly notices the woman standing behind Jehan. She, too, is the odd kind of Daoine Sidhe, but she is wearing a deep, dark green dress, a color that is all but taboo in the Snow Kingdoms. "My lord," she says, her voice ringing out with tones both melodious and sharp, "do you think this wise?"

Toby stiffens, but she's too smart to speak out. The throne room is empty but for the four of them, but that doesn't mean they won't be thrown in a dungeon for being rude.

"Of course," Jehan says. "You know as well as I the threat of instability in such an event."

He stares straight ahead, rather than twisting to look at her. Tybalt watches them carefully. The woman's face is twisted unpleasantly. Surely finding their culprit cannot be this simple, but Tybalt can smell the tense bitterness on her.

"My lady," Toby says, "we will conduct this investigation with the utmost care."

Her expression twists even more when she looks at Toby. "You may call me Josiane," she says. "And while I do not doubt you will attempt discretion, changeling, I question your ability to succeed."

Tybalt tightens his hand on October's even more, ruthlessly pushing down his own anger. "I will keep her in check," he says, forcing himself to sound bored with the proceedings.

"He's very good at it," Toby says. Her tone is spun sugar, and for a moment Tybalt feels very honest fear.

"Very well." Jehan sounds bored with the proceedings. "Darling, we will allow them to explore." He reaches back and pats Josiane's hand on his shoulder. "You may leave."

"We appreciate the freedom, and will honor the need for care," Tybalt says. He turns, practically dragging Toby with him, and they leave the throne room.

It's not until they've been guided back to their room and the door is closed behind them that Toby says, "You might as well have cackled with glee back there."

"Don't be ridiculous," Tybalt says. "That would be unseemly."

"You really think you can control me?"

"I have before," Tybalt says unthinkingly.

He has a moment to expect retribution before Toby's slamming him against the wall. The cold of the ice seeps through his back, but he hardly notices. Toby's staring at him with a fiercely angry expression, and an edge of desperation that is irritatingly, worryingly familiar to him.

"October," he says in the most imperiously bored tone he can muster.

"Shut up," she snaps, and kisses him.

For a moment he's stiff with shock. But she's kissing him aggressively, angrily, and it's so perfectly October that he responds with equal fervor. He presses his hands against her back and her fingers bite into his face, and they kiss like they've never done anything else.

By the time she pulls away, gasping, he's hard. He opens his mouth to say something - what, for once, he has no idea - but she snaps. "Not a word, Tybalt," and pushes him over to the bed.

He's lying down, staring at her, when she strips off the dress and climbs onto him. She's wearing underwear, but it's Snow Kingdoms underwear, lacy scraps of nothing that he touches with care he doesn't feel. She snarls when he does, dragging her fingernails down his arm, and he understands with startling clarity what she wants.

So he flips them, smirking down at her and kissing her again, cupping her breasts with brutal efficiency. Her nipples are already hard, and she gasps into his mouth, bucking almost hard enough to throw him off.

Almost. He laughs and moves to kiss her jaw, her neck. "Do you really think you can keep me from talking?"

"I could stop this."

"And, truly, I'm desperate to couple with you."

"Fuck you," she snaps, the human curse sharp and smooth with practice.

He has to kiss her again, even as he keeps his touches rough, and she shoves him until they're rolling and she's straddling him. He can feel her warmth everywhere, her fire, the subtly changed scent she's carried since she left the pond. She belongs here, but only because there's a mystery for her to chase. She wasn't made for the placid vanity and selfish frivolity of the Summerlands.

He would hate Amandine for keeping her there for so long, had that not been the only way to keep her in Faerie.

"We need to search during the day," Toby says. "Sleeping in shifts -" She gasps as Tybalt presses a thumb over her clit, through the lacy nothing-underwear. "We have to be smart about this."

"There's no one who knows better than you," Tybalt says. "Aside from people who are good at this kind of thing, I suppose."

The slap is startling, but he can't keep his biological reaction from Toby in this position, and she looks startled for a moment before laughing breathlessly. "Idiot," she says, rocking back against him.

Memories of the first terrible time they did this are overwhelming him, and he doesn't know where he should welcome them or push them away. He settles on doing what he wanted the first time and propping himself up against the icy wall, pulling her close enough to kiss.

The position presses their chests together, and brings her glare close to him. He kisses her dirtily, tucking his hands into the back of her underwear and cupping her ass so he can grind her against him. Her fingernails bite into him and he teeth nick his lip sharply. He responds with his own nipping, not bothering to hide or make allowances for the sharpness of his teeth. She gasps, but the way her hips move against him is a strong indicator that she doesn't have a problem with it.

"Let me," he says quietly, nudging her.

She glares, but she sheds her underwear impatiently and tugs his clothes off even more quickly. He half expects her to push him down so that there's more distance between them, but she doesn't change their positions when she sinks down onto him.

It means that when they inhale together, their chests press against one another. Toby drops her forehead down, pressing her face into the curve of his neck, and moves slowly.

It's a position that - he tries not to think about it. The sensations are enough to distract him, anyway, her tightness and the sting when she bites his neck. He reaches up and tangles his hands in her hair, guiding her mouth up so he can kiss her again, then biting her neck in return. She shudders and grinds against him. When she reaches between them, though, he bats her hand away and replaces it with his own. His first press against her clit makes her come, but when he tries to gentle the pace, she snaps, "Don't even think about it."

"Of course," he says, smirking. He moves them quickly, then, pressing her down into the bed and thrusting hard.

It works for both of them. Her legs fall open and she rocks with him, holding onto him so fiercely that his head spins.

He fucks her hard, leaving bite marks and scrapes to match the ones she's leaving on him. When he gets close to coming, he reaches between them again and brings her over the edge. Her reaction is enough to make him follow, closing his eyes against the feeling.

She shoves him off her as soon as he's spent. He lies belly-down on the bed, breathing harshly and trying to think of something to say. Finally, he settles on, "If this is an indication of the tone of our trip, I can't say our little charade will be found out."

"Shut up," she says. "And sleep. Three hours, then investigating, then three more hours."

"I'm surprised you're scheduling sleep in."

"I have to go easy on you," she says.

He waits until his own breathing has evened up before following her into sleep. They're both naked, and the wanton near-trust of their positions doesn't escape him; but then, Toby has never been fully logical about this sort of thing. Hatred and a desperate need for connection mar her ability to be logical.

He sleeps soundly. When he wakes up, he's unsurprised to find Toby curled up against his back. He turns carefully, brushing a finger over the tip of her ear before saying, "It's been three hours."

She blinks awake. "Coffee," she says, voice hoarse.

"I doubt the Snow Kingdoms have it," Tybalt says. He gets up and crosses the room, pulling one of the instant packets out of their bag. "Here," he says, throwing it to her.

She catches it and eyes it. "No mugs or anything."

"They will provide food for us as we see fit, but I believe we…slept…through dinner."

She scowls at him before tearing the packet open and swallowing it. He doesn't miss how she holds herself still, stubbornly refusing to react.

"We should bathe," he says, and goes behind the screen before she can answer.

The sex was good. Its aftermath is less than desirable, but if she chooses to do it again, he knows perfectly well that he won't tell her no.

Once they're ready, he says, "Where do you want to go first? I defer to your expertise."

He means it as sincerely as possible, but she still glares at him. "I don't know the knowe at all," she says. "I guess we should just see if we can find anything, question anyone we see."

"Few people will be awake."

"And the awake ones will be tired and easier to throw off their game," Toby says. "I have done this before, you know."

"Of course," he says. "And you've never made a mistake."

"I'm helping you. That means you shut up." She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. "Okay," she says, and opens their door. "Let's go this way." She turns right and starts walking.

He can tell she's scenting magic as they walk. "You'll tire yourself out."

"That's what the sleeping's for," she says.

"There was no scent of magic at my Court."

"No, but if I smell something and see a tear, then that's an advantage." She stops in front of a door in the hall. "Where's this, do you think?" She opens the door without waiting for an answer.

It's a music room. "A piano made of ice. Wonderful," Toby says. "We need a lead."

"We'll find one," Tybalt says. He's not faking his confidence; it's not as though he's ignorant about what Toby's capable of doing.

"Right," Toby says. She sounds far from convinced, but she says, "Okay. Let's hunt someone down. If we interview people, sooner or later one of them will have at least a clue of where to look." She shuts the music room door and they continue down the hall.

It's nearly a quarter hour of walking silently before a woman glides past them. Literally glides; her feet don't touch the ground. "Ma'am," Toby says, stepping quickly in front of her.

She comes to an instant halt, but her hair doesn't even move. "Yes?"

"I'm Sir Daye," she says. "I'm investigating a…troubling matter for Tybalt, King of Cats." She nods at Tybalt.

The woman surveys them both with indifference. "Yes?"

"I was hoping I could talk to you," Toby says.

She sighs. "Had my lord not ordered it, I would root your legs in ice and continue on my way. Come on. There's a sitting room this way." She turns back around and leads them down the hall.

Tybalt doesn't look at Toby, only follows. He's not sure if they should consider Jehan's willingness to help suspicious or not, but he supposes she'll break it all down when they're alone again. In the meantime, they enter the sitting room - all ice, with drifts of snow as decoration, and white blankets lining ice chaises and chairs - and sit down.

"What do you wish to ask me?"

"If you don't mind, your name. We need to get the lay of the knowe, so to speak," Toby says.

Her eyes are a pale enough blue to be unnerving, but Toby shows no sign of discomfort when she turns them on her. "Viviane," she says.

It's a common name, which means she's old. "I appreciate that," Toby says. "Do you know what we're investigating?"

"Someone tore a hole from our realm into the Court of Cats." A slight sneer comes to her face. "Why anyone would want to do that, I confess, escapes me."

"Right," Toby says. "Well, that's what we're trying to find out. Do you know what - or who - could do that?"

"No." She looks bored. "Except, of course, a mongrel."

Tybalt doesn't bother completely concealing his annoyance. Viviane's gaze flickers to him, then falls away again, having obviously decided he's no real threat. Foolish woman.

Toby herself just says, "You mean a changeling with too much power."

"Of course," Viviane says.

"I would have scented magic, though," Toby says. "Can you think of anything that would leave no magical trace, that could do that?"

"No." Viviane examines her nails. "I suppose you could ask Maxime."

"Yes?"

"He's an historian, of sorts." She sighs. "May I leave? I know nothing that would interest you."

"Of course," Toby says.

She stands and glides away without saying goodbye.

"Well, that was slightly helpful, at least," Toby says.

"Though we don't know where to find this Maxime."

"He's probably not awake," Toby says. "We'll try a few other places, see if we can get any other leads, but when everyone starts waking up we're probably going to be hunting him down."

"Mercenary of you."

She flashes him a quick smile. "It's my job," she says, and leaves the room.

The ice on the floor isn't slick, but it does feel strange to walk over. Tybalt keeps up with Toby as best as he can; despite her naturally being more clumsy than he is, she appears to have fewer problems navigating the ice. He doesn't show his ire, only moves more quickly in accordance with her.

They encounter a few servants, walking the main halls freely since the day is well upon them. None of them know anything. Finally, Toby stretches and says, "You can get us back to our room, right?"

She hardly lingers on "our". He tears his eyes away from her stretching and says, "Of course," turning and leading them back.

They change together, on opposite ends of the room. Tybalt doesn't look at her, and he assumes she returns the courtesy. When they get into the bed, though, and Toby says, "I wish I had an alarm," he turns to face her.

"I will wake you," he says. "We'll be moving by what passes for sunset here."

She frowns a little, but says, "Okay."

He keeps looking at her. She glares back for a moment before sighing. "Maeve's tits," she mutters. "I'm not going to - I'm going to sleep." She rolls over, presenting him with her back, and begins breathing deliberately evenly.

It's not nearly enough to fool him into thinking she's truly sleeping, but it's an effective deterrent to him initiating more conversation. He closes his eyes and slips into sleep.

He wakes up just before what would be sunset, in a world with more human rhythms. He's thoroughly unsurprised to find that Toby is lying close to him, one arm curled over his chest. It's an oddly possessive gesture; he sighs and pushes her arm away. "October. Wake up."

"Cliff," she whispers, a breath so quiet even Tybalt barely hears it.

"No," he says. "I'm afraid not. October." He grasps her shoulders and shakes her lightly.

She groans, but opens her eyes. "Right," she says when she focuses on him. "Okay. I'm going to - yeah." She stumbles out of bed and makes her way over to the closet. "Do we have to dress formally?"

He can see her going tense again, falling into her usual routine. After thinking for a moment, he stands and says, "I will summon hot water."

"You didn't answer my question."

"They will be more open to answering you if you wear one of the gowns. Do you need anything other than hot water for your coffee?"

She turns sharply, blinking at him. "What?"

He raises his eyebrows, waiting.

"I…milk and sugar, if they have it. Or creamer, but I doubt that."

"Cream or milk?"

"Either." She turns away, as abruptly as she moved to begin with. "You don't have to."

"It's in my self interest that you not attempt to tear my head off," Tybalt says, making himself sound unimpressed. "I will return shortly."

He doesn't actually need to go for the supplies himself. He could easily call a page. But he's well aware that he needs some time away from that room. He doesn't want to watch October change, or stare at the ice wall and know that she's changing. He feels too tense, wound tight, and he knows the case will only get worse from here. He can't afford the indulgence of emotions that his mind is fighting to have.

He collects water and cream and brings it back to the room. By then, Toby is sitting on the bed, staring into space with a frown on her face. He offers her the mug of hot water and the bowl of cream mixed with sugar. "They couldn't understand why you'd want it separate."

"That's fine," she says. "I've drunk worse." She empties a packet into the mug - improbably carved from ice, but he's not surprised she doesn't comment on it - and stirs it before adding the cream and sugar.

She closes her eyes on the first sip, sighing. "Okay," she says after a long moment, opening her eyes. "We need to find this Maxime and interview him. And we need to -"

A scream cuts through the air.

Tybalt is mildly impressed by the way Toby knocks back the coffee in a scant two seconds before leaping to her feet. She's carrying two knives, and she moves threateningly as she leaves the room. Tybalt hurries to follow.

They don't have to go far. He's not sure if the knowe shifts itself to allow them passage or if they are simply close to the source of the trouble. Whatever the reason, they go less than thirty feet before they encounter the body on the floor of the hall.

He's a changeling. His limbs are bent akimbo, his throat slashed. Blood is pooling on the floor and smears the walls, glistening eerily.

Terrible though that is, however, the worst is the keening from the servant: crying and imploring to Oberon, mixed in with "Maxime, Maxime."

Lovely: their single lead is dead.

"Oak and ash," Toby mutters. "This is Maxime?" She gestures to the body.

The servant, a wrinkled Hob dressed in admittedly fine livery, looks at her with wide eyes and then nods. "And he's -"

"I know." Toby steps over the body, touching the servant's arm. "You found him?"

"Yes. I…"

"You need to sit down," Toby says. Her tone is soothing, almost mesmerizing. She is accustomed to death in a world that refuses to acknowledge its sovereignty over even the fae. "Can you lead me to a place where you can do that?"

She glances over her shoulder at Tybalt, who nods. He will stay with the body while Toby interviews its discoverer. Of the two of them, he's most likely more capable of preventing others from removing it.

They've gone into a door down the hall when Jehan arrives. His eyes widen when he sees the body. "Who is this?" he demands of Tybalt.

Tybalt raises his eyebrows. The Divided Courts are strange to him, but this level of ignorance about a resident of his knowe is surprising even to Tybalt. "The one who found him said his name was Maxime," he says.

Jehan's expression doesn't change. "A changeling," he says, with lingering distaste. "I will have others remove the body."

"Sir Daye requested that it be left until she has had a chance to examine it," Tybalt says mildly.

"Ah," Jehan says. He doesn't look panicked, though, or even particularly alarmed, considering murder has been committed in his knowe. "I will leave you to it, then. Please notify a servant when you're done." He turns to leave.

"My Lord."

Jehan stops, as Tybalt knew using the honorific would make him. "Yes?" He half turns around again.

"I confess myself curious about your response to murder within your knowe."

Jehan's smile is chilling, both literally and figuratively. "Maxime has been getting in trouble for years. We do not police the collection of debts the way you do in the mortal world."

It's an insult to call the Court of Cats the mortal world, and Jehan knows it. Tybalt lets him leave, though. Toby will return soon, and such callousness to a dead changeling would only distract Toby from her investigation.

Sure enough, Toby returns shortly, without the servant. She grimaces at the scene on the floor. "Has anyone come by?"

"Jehan," Tybalt says. "He was alone."

"That's weird. What did he say?"

"He told me he thinks Maxime has been killed to collect a debt."

Toby narrows her eyes at him. "That's interesting. Now what aren't you saying?"

He would give a great deal for her to be less perceptive. "He seemed unmoved at a changeling being killed in his halls."

Toby shakes her head. "Even the Queen of Mists would care, if only because it's a threat to her security."

"He was confident that it did not represent a threat to the security of the knowe as a whole."

"Also, it's just a changeling," Toby says.

He can tell she's holding quite a bit of anger in, but there's really no way to commend her for that without being unnecessarily insulting. And for now, at least, he is restraining himself. "I suppose you'll ride the blood."

"I don't have much of a choice, do I?" Toby drops to her knees, examining the body. "It's not exactly a distinctive way to kill, I can't taste any magic, and there's no way this is unconnected to what Viviane said."

"Do you think she killed him?"

Toby snorts. "Please. Like she'd soil herself. But there are plenty of ways to find out we were told to talk to him."

"I bow to your expertise."

He can tell Toby doesn't believe him, but she just purses her lips before reaching down and catching some blood on the tips of two fingers.

She grimaces as she licks her fingers, but her expression immediately changes. It's blank at first, then twisted in pain as she gasps for breath and her hands curl into fists. It lasts just seconds, but Tybalt has to restrain himself from approaching her and shaking her until she snaps out of it. Her gift is not a pleasant one.

He waits until she's coming out of it and has stood up before saying, "Well?"

"A Redcap," she says. "Oak and ash, Jehan doesn't think a Redcap roaming the halls of his castle is cause for concern?"

"The Snow Kingdoms take a unique approach to safety," Tybalt says.

"Right," Toby says. "I guess we're going to explore the bad part of town, then."

"Are you sure that's wise?"

"If you have a better plan, you're welcome to tell me," Toby says. "I guess we could go wave my knife at Jehan and yell at him for his twisted ideas about who's expendable, but that probably wouldn't solve your problem."

So it's his problem now. "I do not embrace his ideology," Tybalt says sharply.

She looks tired, suddenly. "You do, though. You've told me."

Tybalt wants to argue, but that would be - unwise. Instead he looks away and says, "Then we should leave, and pass on the message for the area to be cleaned after the night-haunts come."

Toby answers by walking past him. He's not entirely sure that's the way out of the castle, but he's hardly going to argue with her. He follows instead, glancing back at the body before hastening to catch up with Toby.

They find a servant and pass on Jehan's instructions. Toby extracts directions to the "unsavory" part of the city. "Even in Faerie there's crime," she says as they exit the castle. "I'd say it's ironic, but…"

"It is our nature," Tybalt says. "Equality is not something we're particularly invested in."

"Fae rights," Toby mutters with a tinge of dark humor. "Right, okay. So…" She turns and ducks into an alley.

Tybalt raises his eyebrows at her when he pulls abreast of her. "Yes?"

"You need to let me do the talking."

"Do I."

"You don't know how to interact with criminals, Tybalt. The Cait Sidhe, sure, other nobles, but not the lowlifes. You can glare and snarl all you want, but don't talk."

Tybalt's more than a little offended, but he says, "Fine."

"Good." She rests a hand on her knife and says, "This way."

Their directions were precise, so he's not surprised she can follow them. As they get to the part of the city that houses the criminal element, he looks around in boredom. The city is sparsely populated, as much a victim of the slow decline of Faerie as anything else, and there's no actual degradation in the quality of the buildings. But the air has a bitter tang here; it's dirtier and there are more people, most of them changelings. Tybalt does his best not to sneer, but he's not entirely successful.

"Okay," Toby says. "We've found it. Now we just need to…" She walks into a random building, identified by its sign as some kind of tavern.

Not an unwise choice. Tybalt follows, sitting down at a table with her.

"Try to look sketchy, would you?"

He raises an eyebrow at her.

"The opposite of that."

He hunches down. "Our clothes give the game away, don't you think?"

"Do they?" Toby says mildly, which is how Tybalt realizes that she's glamoured the spider silk, changing it into utilitarian pants tucked into scuffed boots and a coarsely woven top.

"Ah," he says. "I don't suppose you could have warned me."

"Where's the fun in that?" Her smile is wan, but it exists. Tybalt isn't going to protest overmuch.

A barmaid comes up to them and they both order ale, which will surely be of lower quality than even the swill they sell in the mortal world. When it's brought to them, Toby snags the barmaid's sleeve and says, with a smile even Tybalt is forced to call charming, "You wouldn't know who I'd talk to about that little…incident in the castle today, would you?"

For a moment the barmaid looks surprised. Then her expression smooths and she says, "I'm sorry, I don't know what you're talking about," and hurries away.

"She's lying," Tybalt says, frowning.

"Yeah, obviously," Toby says. "Finish your ale. Soon we're going to get taken out into the alley by concerned parties."

She speaks with the kind of easy confidence he hasn't heard from her in too long. So obviously, the next words out of his mouth are, "Is this how you tracked down Simon Torquill and his poisonous companion?"

She goes absolutely, utterly still. "Don't," she says in a low voice.

"Others will mention it."

"And believe me, they'll get a lot more than a request to shut their mouths," Toby says. "I - no, I'm not talking about that. Ever."

"As you wish," Tybalt says, and sips his ale.

Toby appears to be disinclined to continue conversation, so he takes the opportunity to survey the room. There are a few people who clearly don't want trouble, but most people have knives or swords strapped to them and are dressed in dingy cotton and leather. He assumes they're standard lowlife: gamblers, murderers, and the like. The Snow Kingdoms have a swift justice that prevents the land outside the city walls from being dangerous, but within the protection of the city, those who choose to live there extract every bit of power and goods they can from those who can't move anywhere else.

It isn't a just system, but then, there's a reason Jehan and Tybalt have never quite been friends. And the Divided Courts aren't Tybalt's concern.

Tybalt's beginning to doubt Toby's prediction when two hulking bridge trolls approach their table. These trolls have sprouts of fur and more sour expressions than Tybalt's ever seen on bridge trolls. It's unpleasant. Toby smiles up at them like they're friends, though, saying, "Can I help you gentlemen?"

"Outside," one of them growls.

"Sure," Toby says, and stands. Tybalt stands as well - silently - and they go out into yet another alley, made narrow by heaps of dirty snow.

"Well?" Toby curls her hand around the hilt of one of her knives and says, "I don't have all day. Spill."

"Heard you was lookin' for trouble."

"I'm sure the Redcap who killed Maxime counts as trouble," Toby says. "But we're not looking for him."

The bridge troll looks confused.

"We're looking for who hired him," Toby clarifies.

Tybalt isn't expecting the trolls to start laughing. They do, though - huge, hacking laughs that sound like sandpaper rubbing against a bed of nails. "You wanna look that high up, we're gonna need payment."

Of course it wasn't just a member of the lowlifes. "You may want to reconsider that," Tybalt says as Toby draws her knife.

"I try to be polite," Toby says. "But, you know, there's only so much I can do, and I'm a little short on time. So: who hired it?"

"Worth more than our lives to tell you," one of the trolls says. "Our children's children would be dragged into hell for it."

Toby grits her teeth. "This is your last warning."

"You and your pretty boy can't hurt us," the same troll says. "Look, lady. You -"

Toby moves quickly - not too quickly for Tybalt to track, but quickly enough that the trolls can't stop her. She has one dragged away and the iron knife touching his stomach before either of them thinks to move.

"Tell me," she says, breathing hard, "who hired him."

"Oberon's nutsack," the troll being menaced says.

"Tell the bitch," the other troll says.

Tybalt finds himself hissing slightly. Everyone in the alley throws him a look: Toby annoyed, the bridge trolls amused. Tybalt sneers at them.

"Anyway," the troll being menaced says. "Some Banshee, comes around asking questions. The wrong kind of questions, see? But no one kills her, because we don't fuck with nobles. Next thing you know, Jim's being hired."

"Jim?"

"Not his name," the troll says. "But you know that. Just what everyone calls him. Jim goes up into the castle, we hear the deed's done."

"The Banshee's name?"

"If I knew I'd tell you."

"Right." Toby doesn't move. "Something's ripping open holes in reality. What could do that?"

"My mom's balls," the troll says. "What do I look like, nobility? You're asking the wrong troll."

"Fine." Toby pulls the knife away and moves away from them. "You can leave now," she says, staring at them.

They snarl a little, but Toby keeps her knife out, and they go.

"Impressive," Tybalt says. He means it, but his tone gives a lie to the words and he knows it. "What now?"

"Banshee narrows it down," Toby says. "But I want to talk to that - woman - who was with Jehan in the throne room."

Tybalt's fairly certain "woman" wasn't what she originally meant. He agrees with both the sentiment and the substance, however. "Do you think we'll have access to her?"

"Jehan said we would."

Tybalt lets his suspicion speak in his expression.

"I can be persuasive," she says. "And so can you. So, yeah. He'll let us talk to her."

Tybalt still has trouble believing that any mystery he needs Toby's help for could be this easily solved, but he's not going to voice that suspicion. Instead, he says, "Back to the castle, then."

"Before those trolls send someone meaner to run us through," Toby says, "I know. Let's go."

She moves quickly and with ease. Tybalt feels an odd kind of attachment to it; he has existed in this world for centuries longer than she, but he lacks the comfort she has with the lower elements. It makes sense, of course; for far longer than he's been a King, he was a Prince of Cats. But he still admires it, perhaps more than is prudent.

When they return to the castle, she lets the illusion covering her clothes dissolve. The knife still stands out, though, stark in its belt hanging from her waist. "How should we ask for access to her, do you think?"

"Tact most likely doesn't matter."

"Okay," Toby says. They keep walking until they find a Daoine Sidhe knight making his way down the hall. Toby says, "Hey. You."

The knight stops, raising his eyebrows. "Yes?"

"Jehan has a companion," Tybalt says, putting a proprietary hand on Toby's elbow. She's forgotten about their arrangement: she stiffens. "A woman who stands with him in the throne room. I'm afraid I've forgotten her name." A lie, but one that will test how honest their encounter in the throne room was.

The knight's lips twist. "You mean Josiane."

"I suppose I do. Where would we find her?"

"Aside from burning in Oberon's asshole?" The knight looks surprised by himself, looking around quickly before saying, "She has a set of rooms. If you ask the castle, it'll take you to her. Easily."

There are suspicious layers there, but Tybalt trusts Toby will tease them apart later. "We will go to her," he says, and they continue walking in opposite directions.

"Do you have to treat me like a dog?" Toby says in a tight, quiet voice.

They've been turning around a lot of corners; they'll probably be led to Josiane sooner rather than later. "Do you think it's unwise?" Tybalt says, keeping his tone light. "You've seen how they treat your kind."

"I know," Toby says. "I - fine. Just forget it." Her fingers flex in his grip, though. They could be walking in a more courtly fashion, but the hand-holding underscores the rather casual nature of Tybalt's view of her to any curious watchers.

And Tybalt does not doubt, for a second, that they have watchers.

They reach a huge oak door quickly. Tybalt assumes this is Josiane's quarters, so he raises his hand and knocks firmly.

A Brownie opens the door. "Yes?"

"I am Tybalt, this is Sir Daye," he says, sketching out a cursory bow. "We are -"

"Come in," the Brownie says, opening the door wider. "Milady is expecting you."

"Lovely," Toby mutters.

Josiane is sitting on a dais when they enter, one that mirrors the throne room's so exactly that Tybalt has to fight not to display his surprise. She looks at them with an unimpressed expression when they enter, lounging on the pillows that make up the dais. "Tybalt. Sir Daye."

Toby bows deeply; Tybalt, thinking better of his initial impulse, follows suit.

"My lady," Toby says.

"Josiane, is it?" Tybalt smiles and takes a step forward. Toby, wisely, stays behind him. "You grow more lovely with every passing hour."

"You've seen me once." Josiane's voice is more musical than he remembers; then again, the throne room had a rather dampening effect on his senses. She rises, her soft blue gown falling in waves. It pools on the floor, a luxury that only someone who never encounters filth can afford. "I suppose this is about that murder."

"We'd hoped to talk to the boy," Tybalt says. "Unreliable though his kind can be, we are here chasing ghosts."

"No, you're chasing flurries," Josiane says. She descends from the dais and holds out a hand. "I have a sitting room," she says, and leads them into an adjoining room.

This room, too, is covered in pillows. She sinks down on them. Tybalt isn't sure if the pale purple is meant to complement her dress and light brown skin, but it does, to striking effect. He sinks down onto the pillows and, after deliberately looking at Josiane, reaches back and smiles at Toby, pulling her down next to him. He keeps a hand proprietarily on her thigh. He's willing to pay the price she'll exact later if this works.

"We've been given some small leads," he says, "but nothing particularly useful. We were directed to talk to you."

She raises her eyebrows. "You think I had something to do with your little problem?"

"It was implied that you were familiar with many races of fae who choose to make their homes here, and that few things happen without your knowledge."

"Ah," she says. "That's true enough. Tell me, how long have you known Jehan?"

Toby's thigh twitches under Tybalt's hand. He doesn't look down, but he squeezes lightly as he replies, "Long enough to know he rarely lets women get close to him, even ones as fine as you."

"Ah," she says. "Well, I'm sure you'll be happy to know he continues his grip on his Kingdom."

She says 'grip' and 'Kingdom' with an odd emphasis, but he can't pin down what it is. "That's good to hear," he says. "My knight has some questions for you, if you'd deign to answer them."

Anyone with a whit less ego would think of it as an insult. She just looks at Toby and nods.

"When did you come to His Highness's court?"

Toby's tone is as mild as Tybalt's ever heard it, thank Maeve.

"Two decades ago," Josiane says. "I was formally a resident of Her Majesty Maria's court, a hundred days' ride to the north of here."

"Still cold, I imagine?"

"Of course," Josiane says. "But - to answer the query I can see in your eyes - it opens to the south of where your liege's knowe is."

If Toby's surprised that Josiane has done her research, she doesn't show it. She nods, saying, "Thank you." What she doesn't say, but everyone in the room knows, is that any fae woman whose name is Maria must be old, even older than Jehan.

Which means her court is, as well.

"Jehan visited Her Majesty's court," Josiane says. She looks bored, but Tybalt isn't going to stop her from volunteering information. "He'd grown weary of ruling alone and requested…a companion."

"Oh?"

"You know how lonely we can get." She sighs. "So I came to live with him. And now I understand there are…problems."

"Tears in the universe," Toby says, "to be exact."

Josiane looks at Tybalt. "Do you enjoy her insolence?"

"I find it amusing," he says. He knows his expression all but dares her to challenge him.

She doesn't. "I don't know what could do that," she says, addressing Toby again. "That sort of thing is the provenance of stories. No race of Faerie tears holes; are you sure they weren't portals?"

"Portals leave scents of magic," Toby says. "I didn't smell any."

She raises her eyebrows.

"I'm a changeling, yeah," Toby says, "but I can smell magic. Believe me, it wasn't there."

"I see," she says. "Then I'm afraid I know nothing."

"A Banshee hired a Redcap to kill Maxime."

"Ah," Josiane says. "Yes. That one liked to gamble."

Even Tybalt has grown weary of her casual contempt and cryptic "ah"s, though he certainly doesn't say so. Toby says, "Well, thank you," making it obvious the conversation is over.

"We won't take any more of your time," Tybalt says, and waits for her to stand.

She looks at them, however, eyes briefly clouding over. "You will find what it hurts you to seek."

"I'm sorry?" Toby says.

But Tybalt blinks and Josiane's eyes are clear. "Come," she says, standing. "You should both eat. I can tell you're hungry."

Or that they need to be chaperoned. "We will find our way," Tybalt says. "You are very gracious."

She smiles. "Open roads."

They exchange bows and a curtsey and then leave.

Just down the hall, Toby says, "We need to talk about this."

"I agree."

Her expression goes through an impressive series of contortions before she says, "Come here," and grabs Tybalt's lapels, pulling him into an alcove in the hallway.

Tybalt raises his eyebrows, surprised. "October -"

"Shut up." She leans up, whispering the words into his ear. "She's involved. She has to be. We need a way into that room."

"I don't think that's wise," he murmurs back, putting one hand on her hip. This sort of display would be out of place in Shadowed Hills, but the Snow Kingdoms expect a certain…lack of restraint…from the Cait Sidhe.

"Tell me how we could get in."

Tybalt would really prefer not to, but her fingers are biting into his shoulders and he knows she's not going to let this go. "I could create a distraction," he admits. "Hire some of the lower elements. But we would need to be fast. We can't use the shadows - Jehan's warding blocks the Shadowed Roads from me."

"Wonderful," Toby says. "Won't they find out we hired someone?"

"Why would Maxime be the only one with debts?"

"Right," Toby says. "Okay. That's - that makes sense."

Tybalt can't resist kissing Toby's neck before he pulls away. Her sharp intake of breath makes him smile. "Let's go to bed," he says.

Tybalt lies awake for awhile after Toby falls asleep. Hiring someone to cause a diversion is hardly a risk-free proposition. If he and Toby are caught, they'll be executed; Jehan is not known for his mercy. But he suspects Toby's right. More than suspects, really; he just doesn't want her to be.

When he wakes up the next morning, Toby's sitting on the one of the rugs on the floor, cross-legged, hair drying. He sighs and stretches. "I suppose you fetched your own coffee?"

"I am actually capable of navigating nobility's knowes," Toby says.

"Of course," Tybalt says. He's getting - uncomfortable - so he rises quickly, grabs a suit of clothes, and goes behind the bathing screen. The water circulates constantly, so he feels less guilty about leaning into it and closing his eyes, letting it wash over him.

Toby, of course, has to disrupt it by saying, "We should find that Banshee tonight."

He is displeased by his arousal, and his reaction to her words. He rubs the soap into his hair, saying, "How do you suggest we do that?"

"Someone has to know about a full-blooded Banshee skulking around." He can picture the annoyed expression on her face, much to his irritation. "She probably won't live in the city. We'll find her."

"Of course. And Josiane?" He ducks under the water, rinsing his hair. After a brief struggle he gives up and wraps a hand around himself, stroking slowly. There is minimal privacy here, and his body is rebelling against his efforts at ignoring his natural urges.

"We'll deal with her. We can go into the city to hire someone today." She sighs. "I can't believe it's that easy to breach the security of the knowe."

"Cultural differences," he says.

But his voice stutters on "differences", and she notices immediately, saying, "Tybalt, are you - oak and ash, you bastard."

He's not expecting her to appear on the far end of the pool. He shrugs, saying, "It was you who initiated conversation. I can only limit my body so much. This seemed the most logical way to take care of things."

She stands there for too long, just staring at him. The water is clear, of course, but warm; he is utterly comfortable and as hard as he's ever been. It occurs to him, when she stares, that she must hate this method of bathing.

So of course he says, "In or out, October," flicking some water at her as though bored.

He's expecting her to storm away, maybe even go down to the city on her own. Instead she closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, then says, "You couldn't make this easy, could you."

It's an ambiguous statement, and he's trying to formulate a response when she steps out of her dress, leaving it pooling on the ground. Her underwear follows, and then she's stepping into the bath, goosebumps breaking out along her skin.

When she's close enough, he catches her hand and pulls her down to straddle his lap. "Easy, little fish," he says, watching the way she stares at the water lapping against the side of the pool.

She swallows, then says, "This is just - it doesn't matter, you know it doesn't matter."

"As I know my own name," he says, and kisses her shoulder.

She lets out a shuddering breath. He wants, suddenly, to suggest they move this to the bed; the water is obviously making her unhappy. But he knows she'd refuse him, and he's not unselfish enough to turn her down entirely, so instead he runs his hands over her hips, up, cupping her breasts gently and kissing her the way he wanted to in the hallway.

He's reminded a little too sharply of the first time they did this. Her stillness is similar. But then she makes a low noise and kisses back, pressing close to him, getting herself as wet as he is. Their skin clings together, water droplets breaking when she pulls away.

He touches her hair, tied back in a ponytail, and the point of her ear. He doesn't say anything; he's not that stupid. But he does kiss her again, brushing his left thumb over her nipple, pressing down when her hips move restlessly.

If he were being honest he would be telling her of her own beauty, her relentless determination that takes his breath away, her easy responsiveness that ties him to her in spite of himself. Of course, if he says any of those things, she'll leave before he has time to catch his breath. Instead he plays with her breasts, kissing her until she's gasping before sliding his hand down to cup her cunt.

One finger slips in easily. She tightens around him when he presses his thumb against her clit. He's mesmerized by the feel of it, the weightlessness of them both in the water. Some of her fear has faded, replaced by a tight arousal that he drinks in as she moves with him.

It only takes a short amount of time, though, before she's wiggling back against his cock and saying, "Tybalt -"

He toys with the idea of making her say it, unable to help himself. He ultimately discards it, choosing instead to pull his hand out and kiss her as he lifts her onto him.

The feeling of her sinking down onto him makes him almost dizzy. His head falls back and he draws in breath slowly, trying to savor the feeling.

He's not expecting Toby to fist a hand in his hair and pull him upright, kissing him angrily. He doesn't protest, though, not when he gets her biting his lower lip and kissing him fiercely as she rides him.

He wants this. He wants it so much that he lets himself get lost in it, the movement of their bodies and the noises of the water, the feel of Toby's skin and the fierce feeling burning from her eyes. He's not even sure what's there, entirely, anger mixed with want and other things Tybalt can't define, but he'd happily drown in all of it if only she gave him the opportunity to do so.

She comes a bare few minutes after he slips a hand between them and rubs her clit again. Her back arches and she throws her head back, and he kisses her throat and strokes her through it for want of anything more honest. When she's shuddering and slumped against him, he lets himself take his own pleasure, coming with his face pressed into her neck.

He's surprised when she lies there for a few minutes as they drift gradually more towards being horizontal in the water. Finally she opens her eyes and looks around, shuddering a little. "If only they had a shower," she mutters, pushing himself away from her.

Unsure what to say, he stays silent.

She doesn't look at him. She migrates to the other side of the tub and grabs the soap, quickly lathering and rinsing herself before climbing out of the tub and wrapping herself in a towel. "Finish up," she says, grabbing her dress and underwear and going out of sight. "We have work to do."

He allows himself a moment of pure exasperation, closing his eyes and tilting his head to the ceiling in supplication. No god or creator of Faerie appears to grant him aid, so he rinses off and climbs out of the pool, dressing quickly.

"Shall we canvass the castle for the mysterious Banshee, then?"

Toby looks up. She's on another mug of coffee; apparently, her stress regarding the case is increasing. "Sure," she says. "It'll probably be better if we go down to the city later, anyway."

He can follow her logic easily. "I must say, I agree," he says. "Shall we depart, then?"

She nods and stands, drinking her coffee and setting the mug on one of the ledges protruding from the walls - tables, Tybalt supposes, though he doesn't tend to analyze Snow Kingdoms architecture overmuch.

"The best thing to do will be to find servants' passages," Toby says. "Since we're up with everyone else."

Tybalt manages not to laugh, just barely. "We won't find them."

"Why not?"

"They'll be hidden behind a glamour. This isn't Shadowed Hills; they cannot be discovered by an inquisitive child."

He can feel Toby glaring. "Fine," she says. "Then we'll need to summon one."

"To lead us to the passages?"

"The castle is open to us for investigation," Toby points out.

"And you think it appropriate to push the bounds of Jehan's hospitality?"

"I think I'm going to do what needs doing," Toby says. She brushes past him and opens their door. Her scent follows, ensnaring Tybalt as easily as ever.

They summon a servant to the first sitting room they find, Toby's logic being that it will be easier for the servant to point out a passage if they're not in Toby and Tybalt's room. The servant arrives promptly, a small changeling girl who looks at them with wide eyes.

"Hi," Toby says, smiling. "I'm Sir Daye, and this is my - this is Tybalt, King of Cats. I was hoping you could help us."

"His Highness says to do anything you need," she says promptly.

"That's good," Toby says. She manages to largely hide her surprise, Tybalt notes. "I was hoping we could see the servant's passageways. We're looking for someone, and - between you and me - I think servants know a little more about what's going on than the average member of the Court."

The girl giggles. "You're funny."

"I try," Toby says. "Can you help us?"

"Okay." She takes Toby's hand and leads her over to a frozen waterfall, offsetting the cold fire burning in the fireplace. "See?" She waves her hand across the waterfall; her hand passes through it. "Just walk through. It's easy to get out. The doors look like doors from inside."

"You're so clever," Toby says. "That should be all we need."

"Okay," the girl says, and curtseys, wobbling a little, before passing through the waterfall-door.

Toby turns back to Tybalt. She's smiling, eyes alight. "Well?"

"I suppose you're going to embrace smugness about your little plan working," Tybalt says, mentally shaking off the affection that had grown at that little scene and walking over to the waterfall.

"I can if you want," Toby says. "It's the least I can do."

"Of course," Tybalt says, and steps through the door.

The hallway is dimly lit and narrower than the main hallways, with fewer furnishings and dull, light blue ice. Tybalt looks around. There's no one to be found.

"Let's just go this way," Toby says, turning and taking off.

They scarcely go ten feet before a servant steps out in front of them.

"Hi," Toby says quickly. "I'm -"

"They know," Tybalt says.

"Fine," Toby snaps. "I'm Toby," she tells the servant. "Could I talk to you for a few minutes?"

The man looks at her, eyes dark. He nods, though, and leads them through the door he came in from. The room is small and cluttered: a storeroom.

Toby sits on a chest containing Oberon knows what and says, "I'm looking for a woman. A pureblood, actually, probably someone in the Court. A Banshee."

When the man speaks, his voice is low and gravelly. Tybalt doesn't know his heritage; some form of troll, perhaps. Toby would know, but that's hardly their objective right now. Instead of wondering, he listens. "Don't know many Court members. You wanna ask Madam."

"Madam?"

"Housekeeper. Runs everything. Mean old bitch, but she'll tell ya."

"This Banshee might not want to be found."

There's a flicker of interest in the troll's eyes. "On the run from the law, is she?"

"That's private information," Tybalt says smoothly.

"And as you can see, purebloods like their privacy," Toby says. "But any help you can give us would not go unacknowledged."

The troll regards her somberly. "Name's Jax," he says finally.

Toby nods. "I'm October."

"Right. There are two Banshees in His Highness's court."

"Oh?"

"One of 'em's Corinne. Sweet girl, wouldn't hurt a fly. Other one's Reine. That girl, she has more ambition than a Daoine Sidhe, see? She's one to look out for."

"I see," Toby says. "I appreciate the information. Open roads." She stands.

"Open roads," Jax says. He waits for them to leave, though, staying there as they exit the room.

Tybalt waits until they're well down the hallways before saying, "What do you think?"

"We go see Corinne."

"Oh?"

"Don't you oh me. Everyone here is as honest as a snake and you know it."

"I certainly wouldn't deny it. How do you think we'll find Corrine, then?"

"We ask Madam."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me. If we asked her for a Banshee without telling her why, she'd lead us in circles. But if we have a name, it's in her interest to tell us, before we decide she's involved somehow." Toby smiles, no joy in the expression. "And like most good housekeepers, I'm pretty sure I know where to find her."

"Lead the way, my dear October."

"I plan to," Toby says.

She leads them to the kitchens. They are loud, smelly, and generally distasteful to someone with as keen senses and as much practice providing for himself as Tybalt has. He's never understood the Divided Courts' habit of having their most powerful members be cooked for and fed the most delicate food. He understands it even less now, taking in the chaos around him.

Toby, though, leads them straight to a woman walking around and giving everyone instructions, saying, "Madam?"

"One and the same," she says. Her voice is musical, despite her body looking like that of an ordinary Hob - meaning, not terribly attractive. Tybalt does his best not to look overly suspicious; he doesn't really succeed. "And you're Sir Daye and His Highness the King of Cats."

Tybalt bows. The variance in his address is interesting, to say the least. "At your service."

"It would appear I am at yours." She sighs. "I suppose you're looking for something. Or someone."

"You're perceptive," Toby says. "We're looking for Corinne."

"Ah, sweet Corrine." Madam raises her eyebrows. "You think she might be involved? She's one of the most gentle folk I've ever known."

"So I've been told," Toby says, "but we're just doing our best to follow up on all leads, even the ones that seem ridiculous."

"Sensible of you." Despite her general appearance and occupation, she doesn't seem like the sort of woman who appreciates sensibility.

"I try," Toby says. "Where can she normally be found?"

"I'm surprised the cat didn't tell you," Madam says, gaze flickering over to Tybalt. "You need only ask the castle, and you will be brought to where you desire."

"At the time, I wasn't willing to assume things have remained the same for 100 years," Tybalt says.

And he doesn't want Jehan's magic to know what they're doing. Or Josiane's, for that matter.

Madam ignores his defense, turning to tell Toby, "I'll have a girl lead you to her. Oy!" She snaps her fingers and a girl scurries to join them. "Take them to Corrine."

The girl nods and curtseys. Toby bows to Madam, and Tybalt follows. "Your household is lovely," Toby says, and lets the girl tug her skirts and lead them away.

Corrine's room is in a smaller, less impressive part of the castle, down several long, narrowing hallways. Tybalt's starting to think Toby might be right, after all; this is hardly impressive accommodations, and in Tybalt's experience, no one lives at any Faerie Court without wanting to be impressive.

Toby smiles at the girl by way of dismissal, then knocks briskly. Tybalt's surprise is redoubled when the woman who answers the knock isn't wearing livery.

"Corrine, I presume?" he says. He keeps himself angled just in front of Toby. "I am Tybalt. This is my companion, Sir Daye."

"Of course," Corrine says. "I'm honored. Please, come in."

Her room is decorated more simply than Josiane's; despite the fact that Josiane has lived in Jehan's castle for twenty years, Corrine's room seems much more lived-in. Tybalt limits his looking around, choosing instead to focus on Corrine, and guiding Toby with a gentle, proprietary hand. She stiffens less this time; she's learning.

"May I ask why you've chosen to visit?" Corrine settles down at an ice table draped in a velvet cloth, motioning for them to to the same. A servant Tybalt hadn't noticed being called appears with delicate glasses of steaming tea.

"Unfortunately, we're casting our net wide right now." Tybalt picks his words carefully, trying not to engender any impression that might make her suspicious. "Any odd behavior - or noticeable behavior, really - we're investigating."

Corrine sips her tea. "That sounds positively pedestrian."

Her voice is still the butter-smooth tone characteristic of Banshees who aren't upset - or trying to compel. "Hence why I have Sir Daye doing most of the work."

Corrine's dark eyes land on Toby. "Then Sir Daye should speak."

Toby clears her throat. Tybalt doesn't know if she realizes it's vulgar or not; probably, since she spent so long in the Summerlands. It's an easy way to make her likely to be dismissed, though. "We heard rumors of Banshees engaging in strange activities," Toby says. "No one said what, of course, but we thought we'd talk to you and see if there's anything that's happened to you over the past few weeks that's unusual."

Clever of her, to specify things that have happened to Corrine. Tybalt watches as Corrine wrinkles her nose and says, "No, I don't think so."

"I'm sure you've heard of the changeling death by now."

"Yes, of course. It's tragic." Corrine's tone, though still sweet, carries more than a shade of dismissal. "I don't think I can help you. I lead a quiet life."

"Does Jehan's Court snub you?" Toby asks.

It's a bold question, but Corrine shows no offense. Her smile is sad. "As much as they do any of my race."

"The Queen of the Mists is part Banshee," Toby says.

"And I am no Queen." Corrine sips her tea again, waiting until Toby and Tybalt do as well before saying, "Reine might have more information."

"Does Reine get in trouble a lot?"

"Oh, no, nothing like that. She's just more outgoing than I am. And she and His Majesty, well." Corrine raises her eyebrows at them.

Toby taps the lip of her cup. "I thought Josiane…?"

"She is his companion," Corrine says. She frowns and stands up abruptly. "I'm terribly sorry, but I have obligations I've forgotten about. You can find your way back to your quarters, I presume?"

Tybalt's ready to protest, but Toby stands as well. "Of course. We won't intrude on your peace any longer." She cocks her eyebrows at Tybalt, who takes her hand and leads her out.

They're silent on the way back to their room. Tybalt's sense of direction is good enough that they only get turned around a few times. As soon as the door is closed, Tybalt says, "Well?"

"It's not her," Toby says. "My money's on this Reine person."

"Ah."

"But she's lying," Toby adds.

Tybalt raises his eyebrows.

"About something. I don't know what. But her freaking out when we mentioned Josiane, talking about a royal affair…even in the Snow Kingdoms, that can't be normal behavior."

"Doubtful," Tybalt says. "Should we investigate more?"

Toby shakes her head. "That trip to the kitchens made me hungry. Can you summon food? Then, Oberon willing, we'll go down into the city for that distraction."

"They most likely won't be able to give it until tomorrow."

Toby shrugs. "As long as it gets done."

He takes a moment to think about the implied time commitment before saying, "I'll ring for sandwiches," and going over to the brass bell by the door.

They sit on the floor to eat them; Tybalt is becoming more convinced that this room, with its lack of any real furniture and no sitting room attached, was chosen for them very deliberately. For the first time, it occurs to him that they haven't been summoned for any meals at all.

He grits his teeth and elects not to think about it. "Your work has been good so far."

"There's a dead body and we have no idea who did it," Toby points out. "Also, we have more suspects than we know what to do with."

"Jehan hasn't taken our hospitality," Tybalt points out. "You've been discreet. Though this next plan is, well."

"Bold."

"To put it charitably, yes."

"It has to be done," Toby says. "All roads are pointing to Josiane - especially if Corrine was telling the truth and Reine is sleeping with Jehan. Jealousy, need for power, those are both two great reasons to start messing with the fabric of the universe."

"I'm not arguing with the necessity," Tybalt says. "I just feel one of us should at least try to point out the somewhat inadvisable nature of it all."

"Right," Toby says. "But anyway - even if it's not her, my guess is we'll find something to indicate her involvement. Her hands aren't clean, one way or another."

"Are we going to look into this Reine person?"

"If we have time after getting back from the city." Toby sighs. "I wish this was like San Francisco. I wouldn't have to assume it'll take us a few hours just to find someone to hire, then."

"You know plenty of the criminal element there." Tybalt's tone is cold and he knows it, but he dislikes thinking of Toby's connection to Devin. Especially so close to the bastard's betrayal of her.

"I know," Toby says. Her tone indicates she's caught on to Tybalt's…discomfort. "But it would make this easier."

"A little hard work never hurt anyone."

"It's hurt me plenty of times before." She takes a huge bite of her sandwich, effectively curtailing conversation.

"Avocado and blackberry jam," she says once she's swallowed. "How'd they even get those?"

"The Snow Kingdoms tend toward isolationism, but even they trade," Tybalt says. "Are you going to change before we go to the city?"

"I figured I'd cast an illusion again."

Tybalt blinks.

"I'm joking," she says. "My illusions are - you know."

Even for a changeling as magically weak as Toby, they're terrible. It's something he's meant to investigate, along with the subtle change to her scent since she came from the pond. If only disaster would stop persistently threatening. "Of course," he says. He puts the tray on one of the wall's outcroppings and says, "I think I'll stay in this. The contrast might help." He turns on the rug, away from the closet.

"Right," Toby says, voice suddenly heavy. He hears a minute of rustling, and then she says, "Okay."

He turns around. She's trying to buckle her belt, sheathed knives hanging from it. He's struck suddenly with the impulse to help; it comes just before he shakes his head and calls himself an idiot.

"If you're done fiddling, we only have a small amount of time before sunrise," he drawls.

"Not real sunrise," Toby points out. "Why do the Snow Kingdoms have night, anyway?"

"Why do they have snow?" He holds out a hand. "Let's go."

He can feel Toby getting more and more agitated, the closer they get to the places in the city where they'll find criminals skulking around. "Relax," he finally says.

"Right."

"I'm serious. Your panic will do nothing."

"I'm not panicking."

"You're worrying. Usually someone's shot you by now, or stabbed you, or tried to turn you into a fish." When she turns to glare at him, he adds, "I can't claim to know how your mind works all the time, but I am familiar with this aspect of your personality."

"It's not a big deal," she finally says, looking away.

"You appear to think so."

"I'd just appreciate if whatever is doing this would come out in the open. They're obviously hostile, so how are they hiding this well?"

"They're probably old and extremely dangerous," Tybalt says. "Here we go: criminals."

They've turned onto a narrow street, and lurking under an ice awning (what it's meant to protect against, Tybalt isn't sure; it scarcely snows in the city) are three unsavory-looking creatures. "Hey," Toby says, walking up to them. "If I wanted someone to sneak into the castle and cause a disturbance, who would I talk to, do you think?"

"Could talk to me," one of them says. It's a woman, Tybalt realizes, though she's dressed in rough clothes and has virtually no curves.

"Awesome," Toby says. "I have gold."

"Don't want gold," she says. "Gimme a memory."

Toby sighs. "Seriously?"

"Or no distraction."

"Let's go," Tybalt says. Toby would give it up; he doesn't want her to have to. "Someone else will take our gold."

"All right, all right," the woman says. "Fine. Two gold pieces and I sneak into the castle and cause a ruckus. Buy you, what, fifteen minutes?"

"Deal," Toby says. "You know where to go?"

The woman snorts. "Everyone knows where to go. It's why almost no one does." She holds out her hand expectantly.

Tybalt pulls out two gold coins and drops them into her hand. "Cause the disturbance at midnight tomorrow."

"Got it," she says.

They turn to go, Tybalt's senses primed to detect any attempt to follow them. They only get a few feet, though, because the woman says, "Why you need this, anyway?"

"Collection of debt," Tybalt says smoothly. "Oh, and - don't kill anyone. I have your scent; if you do, I'll find you."

"Gotcha," she says, saluting sarcastically.

"That was easy," Toby says on the way back.

"Too easy?"

"Kind of what I was thinking."

"A certain lawlessness is to be expected," Tybalt says. "The Snow Kingdoms -"

"I know, I know. You can say that all you want, I just - it doesn't feel right. Tell me I'm not making this up."

Tybalt considers it. Toby might not have visited the Snow Kingdoms before, but then, Tybalt hasn't in a long time; and Toby has a familiarity with the Divided Courts that he cannot claim. "Do you think Josiane is facilitating instability?"

"I think it's awfully suspicious that you can just wander around and hire thugs," Toby says. "And I think Josiane is involved, one way or another."

He has always been fascinated by her determination to unearth the truth, even when it proved inconvenient. Now, it is a matter of imperative. "We will search her quarters thoroughly, then," he says finally.

"Good."

They're waylaid when they get back to the castle, though, a few hours before sunrise. "His Highness Jehan would like to see you," a liveried knight says.

"Of course," Tybalt says. He tucks Toby's hand in the crook of his arm. "Lead the way."

Jehan is in the throne room. That alone is troubling. Also troubling is Josiane standing behind him again.

"Your Highness," Tybalt says, bowing.

"Please."

"Jehan," he concedes. "How may I help you?"

Josiane speaks before Jehan can even open his mouth. "We were wondering how the investigation is proceeding."

Tybalt conceals his surprise as best as he can. Jehan doesn't even look troubled by being spoken over. "It is going well," he says. "Of course, we can't provide details as of yet. But Sir Daye has uncovered several leads." He pats her hand proprietarily. She's gotten much better at not reacting.

"How nice," Josiane says. She manages to pack an impressing amount of condescension into the words. "And what will you be doing tomorrow?"

"Chasing leads," Toby says.

She sounds sullen and insolent; Tybalt would kiss her hand if he could, much though he knows it discomfits her. "As always," he adds, knowing it won't improve their appearance.

He's more or less counting on it.

"Our hospitality is not infinite," Josiane says, managing to make 'our' sound like 'my'.

Tybalt looks at Jehan, but he's sitting in silence. For the first time, Tybalt sees age in his expression. He knew Jehan was old, older than anyone in the Divided Courts in California, but this…

He bows again. "We will be cautious," he says. "You have my word."

"And mine, not that you care," Toby adds dryly.

"Such impudence," Josiane says. "I hope you keep her on a short leash."

"Control is my utmost priority," Tybalt says smoothly.

"Then I bid you good day," Josiane says. "Kindly report to us at dinner tomorrow. We eat three hours before sunrise."

"I would be honored," Tybalt says. He doesn't bow again, but Toby does bow, somehow managing to make it look sarcastic. He leads her out.

When they're sufficiently far away from the throne room, he murmurs, "Are you doing this on purpose?"

"Doing what?"

"I think you know."

"Treat me like I'm dumb."

"You do enough stupid things."

She stomps on his foot, but as they're still walking, it backfires and she nearly falls. He helps her get upright, then keeps them walking again, noting the defiant look in her eyes. "They expect me to be disrespectful," she says finally. "And I don't owe them allegiance the way I do the Queen of the Mists. If I thought they'd throw me in a dungeon - but they're not going to. Yet, anyway."

It's impressive reasoning, considering her habit for charging into things without thinking. "You've changed."

"Lucky me."

"You're more thoughtful than you were. I wonder why that is?"

"There's no truth here I don't want to see."

Her voice is harsh, and he knows she's talking about the changeling Devin, and everything that resulted from that. He sighs. "October -"

"Don't," she says.

They walk the rest of the way in silence.

By the time they get back to their room, there's a coldness in Toby's expression that wasn't there before. She looks at him for a long moment before saying, "I'm going to try to track down Reine."

He hardly needs to be an expert in her body language to pick up on what she's implying. "Without me."

"I need space. Oak and ash, Tybalt, I've been -" She straightens her shoulders and looks past him. "I'm going to question her," she says. "You're not going to come."

It's an order that he's loathe to listen to. He thinks she's expecting him to - she has to know she can't actually tell him what to do. But he doesn't respond, and she leaves quickly.

He's not surprised to find himself irritable in her absence. He paces for awhile, considers leaving, and decides against it. With his lack of things to do, he ends up pulling one of her coffee packets out of the bag and staring at it.

They have enough for a month, which make Tybalt wonder exactly what whoever put it in there thought he was planning. That's a mystery for another time, though. Now, he rips the small packet open and holds the crystals in his hand. Their smell is pungent. He can't imagine that they're pleasant, even when diluted in water; he doesn't know how she ate them without that dilution.

But Toby's not some sort of automaton. He lifts his hand to his mouth and touches the crystals with his tongue, curiously.

He spits them out a second later, revulsion shooting through him so quickly that he ends up spilling the remaining coffee all over the rug. Disgusting. Toby's tastebuds must be even more dead than he assumed, with her being a changeling. What is wrong with her?

There's a pitcher of water in a corner. It's meant for ablutions, but Tybalt drinks some of it anyway, unable to keep expressions of disgust off his face. He cannot believe he's kissed a mouth that has ingested that.

He's busy pacing again, having abandoned exploration and attempts to understand Toby, when she enters the room again. He realizes with surprise that he doesn't know how long it has been since she left; it seems like time passed quickly, but she had to have been gone long enough to have talked to Reine.

"Well?"

Her face is oddly lax for a second before she shrugs. "Nothing interesting," she says. "I think she's just the King's whore."

The words are surprisingly blunt. "I forget you have no love for purebloods sometimes."

She smiles, sharp and narrow. "Technically they're my betters."

"You don't think that." He watches her as she approaches. Her strange mood doesn't appear to have lifted; if anything, it's gotten worse. "October, what -"

"Shut up," she says, and kisses him.

Contrary to her words, it's a slow, sweet kiss, the kind they never have - not even in Tybalt's imaginings, when he's too weak to push her away. His hands land on her hips of their own volition and he kisses back, unable to keep from doing so even though he knows he should ask what's wrong.

"Bed," she says, reaching back and letting her gown puddle on the floor.

He goes to it, stripping as he moves. He settles on his back, expecting her to ride him - expecting her to seize that control, to use it to keep him distant. Instead she lies down and pulls him on top of her, kissing him again.

They kiss, and kiss, and kiss, and he touches her everywhere he can, marveling at the way she accepts the touch, malleable under his hands. Distantly he knows something has happened - she's upset, or trying to lie to herself about something. But he cannot pull away, not when she's offering herself to him so fully.

He makes her come and spends himself inside her, and when she rolls over, he lets her go. Falling asleep is easy, then, with sunrise so close and Toby lying with him, for once free of conflict.

He realizes his mistake when he wakes up after the sun has risen with iron searing his skin. He opens his eyes with a single fact flooding his mind: Banshees can bend the will of those forced to listen.

Toby - or Toby-who-isn't - smiles cruelly at him and says, "Surprise." Then the pommel of the knife impacts with his skull, and everything goes black.

When he wakes up, he's bound hand and foot. It's midday, and with that alone, he feels weak. The fact that he's lying on the cold floor with no rug to even cut the chill doesn't help.

"October," he says, lifting his head.

She's sitting at the table, watching him. "I called off the distraction," she says, smiling. "Tell me, who do you think is tearing holes in the universe?"

He is bound with the rope they had in their bag. Reine compelled Toby; Reine is either too young or too old to remember the Cait Sidhe well. When he shifts, these ropes will not hold.

But Toby won't forgive him if he doesn't at least attempt to extract information first. So he says, "Josiane. I suppose Reine is in league with her, keeping Jehan under her thrall."

Toby laughs, actually throws her head back and laughs. "Interesting," she says. "And yet, you've failed to pick up on key information. Too busy making me your whore, I guess."

"I am not the one who keeps returning," he says mildly. "Why do Reine and Josiane want control of this Kingdom? It's not particularly rich. All it has is age. And it's quite clearly in decline."

"That's enough," Toby says.

"And which one of them is tearing holes in the universe? I confess myself impressed, but -"

She stands and kicks him. "I said that's enough."

Cats tend not to endure unnecessary pain. "You'll regret being tight-lipped," he says, and shifts.

The rope falls free. He bounds away, hisses, shifts again, and grabs her shoulders, biting her lip hard enough to draw blood and kissing her.

It's a long shot and he knows it - but when she inhales sharply, blood flooding both their mouths, he can feel the enchantment leaving her, her own scent of magic rising around her.

"What the hell," she says, pulling away.

"Before you ask, no, Reine did not deign to share the details of her plan with you."

Toby looks at him with wide eyes. She looks more horrified than the situation really warrants, Tybalt thinks, but he's not going to analyze that right now. "I suppose the kingdom isn't safe for us anymore."

She shakes her head. "They - if I walk out that door, I'm dead."

Tybalt doesn't bother asking what will happen to him. "Very well," he says. "I'll summon the Shadowed Roads, then."

"We're running?"

"Do you have any other suggestions?" He smiles tiredly. "It's incredibly rude, their wards will be set to prevent it next time, and my life will likely be forfeit in the Snow Kingdoms. But we need to leave. We can return later; there are other roads."

"Right," Toby says. "Fine. Do your magic, then."

"Your faith is charming," Tybalt says dryly. He gets their bag and then gathers the shadows - a much more difficult task, here. Finally, though, he has enough. "Hold your breath," he says, and brings October in with him, grimacing at her weight as they run towards Shadowed Hills.

He means to ask her about the binding. He means to ask her what Reine's plans for him were. Instead, he asks her none of that; they step through to Shadowed Hills and into the middle of a war.

There are tears in reality everywhere, five in this great room alone. Duke Torquill is fighting, along with his knights, and Toby jumps into the fray right away, knife out. He'd be worried about her, but there are frost goblins, Cloud Kingdom soldiers, and all manner of thugs and fighters spilling through the cracks, and that plus the distortion in reality is enough to make Tybalt sick.

So he jumps into the fight as well, turning his back on Toby for now.

No one in this room is easy to kill. Tybalt doesn't expect it, really; these are fae he's dealing with, not mortals. Some changelings, of course, but in some ways changelings are harder to kill. They know they can die and take more pains to avoid it.

He takes hits, shallow cuts along his arms before he manages to make a killing blow. But no one is using elf-shot or even long-range weapons, and Tybalt shifts freely, moving from person to person and leaving bodies in his wake. Now is not a time to be merciful.

The problem is, soldiers of all kinds keep pouring through the cracks in the world. The longer Tybalt fights, the more it seems there are, despite his exhaustion. He sees Duke Torquill making his way towards him, so he redoubles his efforts to get to him, until finally they're fighting side by side.

"Toby needs to close the tears," Torquill says.

"She won't abandon us to the fight."

"No," Torquill says, beheading a frost goblin. "I will be in your debt if you protect her while she does it."

At some point, Tybalt will have to spare some mental capacity to be shocked by the trust that implies. Right now, however, he says, "It's done," and makes his way over to Toby.

She's covered in blood and looks all the fiercer for it. "Close the tears," Tybalt says. "I'm to provide you cover."

"No."

'It's an order from your Duke," Tybalt says, ducking out of the way of a Foletti's sword and slashing its throat with his claws.

"Oberon's thrice-cursed dick," she says. "Fine." She takes off for the first tear, making her own pathway in the carnage. Tybalt follows, keeping everyone away, killing who he can in the process.

He's not surprised when she uses the blood on her to close the tears, working magic that - no, he's not going to think about that right now. He watches instead, killing for her and around her, gasping for breath but refusing to allow his body to give in. Finally the tide of new soldiers stems, and the fight begins to turn their way. By the time Toby closes the last tear, there are just a few left.

"There," Toby says, turning to Tybalt. She looks exhausted. "My head is -"

A Foletti suddenly becomes visible. That isn't a problem. His sword stabbing through Toby's shoulder is.

Tybalt leaps at the Foletti without thought, killing him before he can even raise his sword again. He then turns immediately to Toby. She hasn't screamed, but she has gone white, she's bleeding profusely, and is wavering on her feet.

He's not going to panic. He absolutely is not going to panic. He simply catches her and says, "Toby? Toby, hold on, we're getting out of here." He can call up the shadows here, and does, stepping through them and into one of the Duchess's gardens.

"Stabbing…isn't fun," Toby says faintly. She's pressing her hand against the wound, but blood is gushing out of it. "Could use Jin right now."

"Where is she?"

Toby blinks hard, but she doesn't answer. Tybalt just barely manages not to shake her. "Toby, where is Jin?"

She frowns up at him. "Calm down," she says. "I'm just…bleeding a little."

He looks at her, then blinks and really looks. It's not just her shoulder; she has scratches all over, a few deep cuts on her arm opposite her injured shoulder, and a suspicious tear in the stomach of her shirt. And damn it, she just spent half an hour working blood magic.

"My head hurts," she adds.

He has to find Jin and get her healed, fast. He's cursing her and himself in equal measure, and he can't leave her, he can't afford to in any sense. He's about to give up and leave when Luna appears.

"Oh, Toby," Luna says. "No wonder my garden was screaming." She looks at Tybalt. "I've sent for Jin."

He nods, not trusting himself to say something he'll regret, in some way or another. He can't fervently thank everyone who helps Toby, especially not the Duchess for the holding Toby's sworn to. Instead he holds onto Toby's free hand, pressing his other hand over the wound in her shoulder, until he sees Jin.

"Step back," she snaps. He doesn't argue; she has to know how much he'd resist being told to stand down. It's still agony to be standing apart from her while Jin works, especially since, if Toby's conscious, she's not bothering with keeping her eyes open or speaking.

When Jin is finally done, she looks up at Tybalt and sighs. "You can come here again," she says. "Not that I really think I could stop you."

He nods and steps close. Toby's still covered in blood, but she's sleeping peacefully now, her many cuts healed over. "Her shoulder?"

"It'll be stiff for a couple days," Jin says. "I'm needed elsewhere, but I'll have someone guide you to a room for her. Have food brought, as well."

Tybalt nods. "I owe you a debt."

"Don't be ridiculous. The Duke wants Toby healed, regardless of the stupidity of her actions." Jin nods a goodbye, and leaves.

Tybalt doesn't take hold of Toby's hand or anything foolish like that, overly conscious of how it would look as he is. He does watch her, though, taking in her breathing and the disturbing smell of the blood on her until a Tuatha de Danaan in Torquill colors steps through a portal and looks at them grimly.

"Come with me," he says, bending to life Toby.

"I will carry her," Tybalt says, more sharply than he intended.

"As you wish," the man says. He waits until Tybalt has lifted her to step through the portal.

They're in a sumptuous room that manages to be both plainly decorated and reeking of money. Tybalt lays Toby down on the bed gently, backing off immediately.

The Tuatha de Danaan is watching them with mild indifference. "I'll send someone in with food," he says, and opens up another portal back into the hall where the fighting was, leaving Tybalt alone with Toby.

He wants to beg her not to die. He's done it before; he has no illusions about his dignity on that score. But part of him still can't let go of the determination that led him to alienate her in the first place. He doesn't want her aware that he has any regard for her, much less that he cares about her healing well, and not just not dying.

Still, he can't keep his eyes off her. He watches her closely, until finally - after what feels like an eternity, but in reality is less than an hour - she wakes.

"Sylvester?"

He makes himself walk into her range of vision. "I'm afraid not."

She blinks up at him, frowning faintly.

"You should have mentioned you were covered in injuries before attempting complicated magic," Tybalt says. "Or did it simply not occur to you that you're a changeling, and not a very powerful one at that?"

She grimaces. "I don't need this right now."

"I'm terribly sorry my presence is such an awful burden, but I am not the one who refused to exercise even the barest amount of personal responsibility for my own welfare."

"Give it a rest, Tybalt," she says, closing her eyes. "How did Josiane know we'd come here?"

"She most likely didn't," Tybalt says. "It was either a lucky guess, or there were tears in other places."

Toby shudders. "They felt…wrong. They shouldn't have been there. And not just because soldiers were pouring out of them."

"So naturally, you had to nearly kill yourself to stop it."

"I would've been fine if I hadn't gotten stabbed."

"Pity you were, then." Tybalt says it acerbically, but he can hear the worry in his own voice. He can only pray Toby's natural unawareness prevents her from hearing it too.

"Are you here for a reason, or just to make me wish Jin hadn't gotten there in time?"

He doesn't show the flare of anger that question gives him, doesn't let on to any revelatory fury. He falls back on old habits and says, "My dear October, everyone else is busy fighting a miniature war. I'd prefer not to have a Duke of the Divided Courts angry with me for shirking a babysitting responsibility."

"You're a dick," she says, and closes her eyes again.

He doesn't reach out; he doesn't say anything. He simply goes back to his chair and sits in it. He has to trust that other people will come, people Toby cares about and who tie her to the world.

He's surprised when she speaks. "This is my fault."

"Please explain to me how even an ego as inflated as your arrived at that conclusion."

"I should have done my job instead of -" She waves her hand. "Getting distracted."

He would really prefer they never bring up the unfortunate truth of their…relationship. "It was brief and affected neither of us strongly. Josiane is old and knew more about us from the beginning. I should have been more cautious."

She smiles slightly. "It's almost like you're trying to comfort me."

"I beg you not to make that assumption."

"Uh huh." She stretches. "I need food."

"There is some being sent to you."

"Good." She tries to push herself upright.

Tybalt is torn between supporting her and pushing her back down. In the end, he doesn't move, and watches her stubbornly prop herself upright despite the very obvious desires of her body. "You shouldn't be pushing yourself."

"You shouldn't be offering commentary," Toby says. "So, we know Josiane did it. I doubt we'll be welcome back in the Snow Kingdoms."

"No," Tybalt says. "But that doesn't mean we can't go."

Toby raises her eyebrows. "There were tears opened from all kinds of places," she points out. "You still think it was the Snow Kingdoms?"

"The intrusion into my Kingdom would suggest so."

"That, and how suspicious Josiane's been - I know." Toby sighs. "Okay. So, we go back, and - what? Drag Josiane off to face higher justice?"

"You always try for the dramatic option."

"Tell me I'm wrong."

Tybalt doesn't. Toby's expression settles into one of resolve. "So that's what we'll do, then."

Tybalt wants to say no, in no uncertain terms. He wants to find Duke Torquill and convince him to forbid Toby to go. As always, there are a dozen options that spring to mind immediately that have excellent chances of stopping Toby in her tracks. And as always, he knows he can't take them. He can hurt her and try to make her hate him, but trying to stop Faerie's most stubborn detective from doing her job is the sort of thing he can't make himself do.

Despite wishing - devoutly - that he could. "Of course," he says. "Why would I ever even hope you'd take a less combative stance?"

"I was enjoying not talking to you, you know." She stops staring into space and looks directly at him. "Those two months were great."

"I'm terribly sorry to have disappointed you."

"Yeah, well." She shrugs. "If you wanted things to be non-combative and calm and courtly, you wouldn't have brought me in."

He can't really deny the truth of that. "I will, of course, go with you."

She frowns. "You don't have to do that. I don't want you to do that."

"A pity, then, that I'm going to."

Her frown increases. "Damn it, Tybalt."

He shrugs, raising his eyebrows at her.

"Right," she says. "Fine. Tag along, I don't care. I'm dragging Josiane to justice either way."

Tybalt's about to say something sarcastic when a servant enters with a tray of food - and coffee, Tybalt's nose picks up. He does his best not to display his distaste.

"The Duke instructed me to bring this to you," she says, setting the tray down across Toby's lap. "He also requested you not leave until he's spoken with you. At length, he said."

Toby nods, looking grim. "I thought so. Any casualties?"

"Many injuries. No deaths."

He doesn't know if the relief in her posture and expression is obvious to anyone but him. Of course she places the responsibility for any other fool's injuries on herself. "That's good to know," she says. "I look forward to seeing the Duke."

The servant takes that as the dismissal it clearly is, bobbing a curtsey and leaving. Toby picks up her coffee and inhales, looking -

Orgasmic. Tybalt looks away.

"Okay," Toby says. "So, I get some food in me, calm Sylvester down, then we go talk to the Luidaeg. She'll give us a way into the Snow Kingdoms."

"You really think that's wise?"

"I think I don't have much of a choice, which is practically the same thing."

"How in her debt are you?"

Toby flushes, then gets a mulish look. "None of your business."

"I wouldn't go that far. I've asked you to help me."

"And I'll do what I need to do. End of discussion." She takes a gulp of coffee, and then another, before putting it down and attacking the toast she's been provided.

"Your stubbornness is not your most attractive trait." He makes himself look distant, eyeing her dispassionately. "Though few would call you stunning."

"Only few, huh? Be careful, I might think you're complimenting me."

"Alas, I lack the power to control others' stupidity." Including Toby's - not that she'll take it that way.

"What a tragedy for you." She devours another piece of toast, then finishes her coffee. The tray comes with a carafe, which she uses right away, before starting in on her eggs.

Tybalt isn't hungry, but he's a bit jealous of her intent eating anyway. He has nothing to distract his attention from the way her hands shake slightly, the smell of her fading adrenaline that highlights how close she was to breaking entirely. "We will need to be extremely careful when entering the Snow Kingdoms."

"No shit, Sherlock."

He ignores the mortal phrasing. "Jehan obviously believes in Josiane. That, or he is completely under her control. Reine managed to ensnare you in a remarkably short period of time."

"I wasn't exactly planning on stomping in with two AK-47s and shooting up the place. I am actually capable of subtlety. Stealth, even."

"Are you forgetting what species I belong to?"

The look Toby gives him is oddly serious, even considering their subject matter. "I never do."

He wishes, with somewhat comical desperation, that she was not so unsettling and impossible to reach. "In that case, you should be aware it's wise to listen to me about matters of stealth."

"We'll have to be careful. I get it." Toby gulps down half her new mug of coffee, pressing her fingers very briefly to the center of her forehead. Jin couldn't cure the magic burn completely; that's not surprising. Neither is his concern, really, idiotic though it may be. "Are you going to tell me anything I don't already know?"

He briefly considering apprising her of her idiocy, but that would probably cross a line even for them, considering her vulnerability. "You may have to kill Josiane."

"I'm not breaking Oberon's law," Toby says flatly.

"You won't be, if you're defending yourself," Tybalt points out.

"On her property?"

"Prove her wrongdoing, and even the Queen of Mists won't be able to prosecute you. And the Snow Kingdoms…they have their own laws."

"Everyone obeys Oberon's law. Everyone."

Sometimes her noble naiveté is more obvious than usual. Tybalt raises his eyebrows and waits.

"Fine," Toby says. "Everyone does, except when they don't. I might have to kill her. So?"

"Do you enjoy ignoring obvious statements of danger?" Tybalt snaps. He would rein himself in, stop himself, but he can't. The thing in him that kindles when Toby puts herself in danger is rapidly becoming a bit of a bonfire. "I'd call you a fool, but that seems charitable."

"I might die," Toby says. "I know. I just don't know what you expect me to do about it. You wanted my help; you're getting it. I can't march into the Snow Kingdoms with an army. If I die, fine; I'm going to do my duty."

Tybalt could strangle her. She doesn't look the fragile, brave heroine of times past. She doesn't look like the noble, suffering hero, either. She looks annoyed, and too stubborn by half. And Tybalt is going to follow her, even if it results in her death. "Oberon's teeth," he mutters. "Very well. I will still accompany you in this idiocy."

"Glad we sorted that out," she says, and goes back to drinking her coffee.

He's saved from having to attempt conversation by Duke Torquill entering. Tybalt stands, the bare minimum of politeness, and says, "Your Grace."

"Your Highness." But Torquill isn't looking at him. His gaze is fixed on Toby. "Toby, what -"

"Most of the blood's not mine," Toby says quickly. "And Jin healed me."

"So she told me." The grimness in Torquill's voice indicates that Jin also told him how dire the injuries were. "Oak and ash, Toby, I thought…" He walks over to her and sits on the bed.

Toby's clutching her mug as though afraid of some sort of censure. Her utter ignorance of others' regard for her is Tybalt's salvation, but he still feels some measure of sympathy for the Duke. "I did what you asked me to."

"Yes," Torquill says, voice suffused with regret. "You did. And now you're going to do what Tybalt has asked you to."

"It's not just for him."

Tybalt doesn't miss the "just" and he doubts Torquill does either, but they both wait for Toby to continue. "Whatever their motivations are, if this keeps up, there are going to be more problems. Big ones. You know that."

Torquill sighs. "I do."

"So I'm going to do this." Toby shrugs, eyes flicking over to Tybalt. "Tybalt's coming with me, anyway. I won't be completely alone."

It's only then that it occurs to Tybalt what a significant departure from Toby's usual nonsense this is. He half wants to point it out, but he's well aware of how well that would - or wouldn't, really - end.

Instead he simply chooses to say, "I assure you, she won't be. I have a vested interest in seeing this through to the end."

"My people were injured in battle," Torquill says grimly. "We both do."

"Along with most of Faerie," Toby says sharply.

It's not a rebuke - she'd never offer one to her liege. It's largely directed at Tybalt himself. He lets himself smile, though, displaying teeth. "I'm aware."

"Enough of this," Torquill says. "Toby, you need to rest. Tybalt -"

"I'm not leaving."

He says it too sharply. Really, saying it at all is revelatory on a level he's not comfortable with. But Torquill just says, "As I was going to say, I can have a cot brought."

Toby opens her mouth, then shuts it so quickly Tybalt's certain Torquill doesn't see it. He's fairly certain he knows what she was going to offer. Sharing the bed would be practical; it would also be a terrible idea in every sense of the word. "I'd like that," he says finally.

"It's for both your protection." Torquill sounds grim. Tybalt would pity him, but the Divided Courts have laughable security compared to the Cait Sidhe, and right now Tybalt's own domain is being held together by Raj's will and some loyal lieutenants.

"We'll be fine," Toby says.

"That reminds to be seen." Torquill's smile is wan. "Sleep at least six hours. I'm going to lock your door once the cot is brought in." He pats Toby's hand and leaves.

"I guess you're my guard dog," Toby says almost right away.

"October, much though I enjoy your rapier wit, the dog comments are as tiresome as they were fifteen years ago."

She ignores him. "Do me a huge favor and growl at Josiane to distract her, okay?"

Tybalt sighs.

They maintain an uneasy silence after that, until someone comes in to roll the cot out and take Toby's breakfast tray. (After she pours the remaining contents of the carafe down her throat and asks for a thermos to be brought to her in exactly six hours; Tybalt honestly doesn't know how she's planning on sleeping.) Once they're in private, Tybalt lies down on the cot.

He half expects it to be magically cloud-like in softness, but it's just a simple cot. He's not sure if he's relieved or discomfited. Above him, Toby makes one of the small noises he's become accustomed to and falls asleep.

He aches to hold her, which is so profoundly stupid he's disgusted with himself. He falls asleep with his nose in the air out of sheer self-defense.

To his surprise, he's shaken awake by Toby herself. Well, Toby's foot - but still. The first thing he smells is her coffee, and it's so immensely, oddly comforting that he smiles and moves his hand to reach out before he realizes what he's doing.

He snatches his hand away then, opening his eyes. "Toby."

"Tybalt." She does a good impression of looking annoyed, but he's almost certain she's not actually angry. "You look even smugger when you sleep. Get up. You need to take us to the Luidaeg's."

He stands up immediately, shaking himself and putting his hair back into place, doing his best to look as though he's doing it for her benefit, and that he couldn't care less. "Why do you think I know how to get there?"

"She's the sea witch."

"I'm not of the sea."

"No, but she's important, and if you try to tell me you don't know the route to her place and the Mayor's office, I'm going to call you a liar."

It's both true and more insightful than he normally gives Toby credit for. He blinks. "Of course. Close your coffee."

She screws the lid on and looks at him expectantly.

There's really no putting this off. He sighs, checks to make sure she has her knives, and takes them into the shadows.

The sea witch is her ever-charming self when they impose upon her: she looks first at Toby, then at Tybalt, before saying, "God fucking damn it all to hell, what've you done now?"

"Nothing," Toby says.

"You're with the King of Cats. Don't tell me you've done nothing."

She still hasn't let them in, Tybalt notes with interest.

"Fine. I've done something, yeah. I agreed to help him. So now we need your help. Can we come in?"

Toby says it all calmly. Tybalt's itching to call the whole thing off and just leave, but he forces himself to smile as charmingly as possible at the sea witch.

She, of course, is completely unimpressed. "Fine," she says, turning and disappearing into her house.

It's as dank and dirty as ever. Tybalt does his best not to show his distaste, but the way the clams embedded in the carpet snap at him indicates they've noticed his lack of regard for their general existence in a carpet. He sneers back at them and hastens to follow Toby into the kitchen.

The sea witch turns to them once they're near her again, eyes gone flat and a bit darker than Tybalt's comfortable with. "Well? Explain yourselves."

"Someone's ripping holes in reality," Toby says. "Tybalt's Court was attacked by frost goblins, and after we went to the Snow Kingdoms to investigate, Shadowed Hills was attacked by creatures from all over. There were eighteen rips into the same room."

"Rips." The sea witch blinks. The darkness in her eyes doesn't go away. "You're telling me someone's not opening portals, they're fucking with the fabric of reality?"

"That's exactly what I'm telling you."

"Fucking hell." The sea witch turns and begins making tea; she doesn't offer any to them. "Why are you always at the center of trouble? No, don't answer that; I know why. The question is, what the fuck do you think I can do about this?"

"We're pretty sure the trouble is coming from a Daoine Sidhe in the Snow Kingdoms. Her name is Josiane. I can deliver her to justice, but I need your help to get us to the Snow Kingdoms."

Tybalt doesn't miss the strength in Toby's voice, the ease with which she requests the sea witch's help. He also doesn't miss the way the sea witch's visage flickers when Toby says 'deliver her to justice'.

"Right," the sea witch says. "Fine. I can't send you on any of the usual roads, but you're with a King of Cats."

"The Shadowed Roads are closed to him if he's trying to enter a Snow Kingdoms Court."

The sea witch smiles, an expression entirely without humor. "How stupid do you think I am? I can get him that access."

Her kettle whistles. She pours the water into her mug, along with the tea, the leaves loose. She leaves the mug on the counter, though, circulating in her kitchen, scraping bits of filth off the walls and tossing them in a large mixing bowl along with various other things Tybalt doesn't recognize.

Toby doesn't look surprised. Tybalt wants to voice dissatisfaction at even the idea of being forced to ingest that, but he has a strong feeling that speaking right now would be unwise. Instead, he waits, even when the sea witch turns back around with the bowl held in front of her and speaks heavy, magic-filled words in a language he doesn't recognize.

The power that blows back when she drops the bowl and shatters it on the floor, however, is astonishing. It isn't his magic, or Cait Sidhe magic at all; it's wild and strange, even to him, but it reaches out to him and wraps its tendrils around him. Tybalt gasps in spite of himself, fighting to solidify his hold on it.

"Don't ask me to do that again," he distantly hears the sea witch say. "And don't come back here unless you're ready to ask that question."

"I won't," Toby says. "Tybalt? Are you okay?"

He holds up a hand. The power has settled, feeling like a coat of sand just under his skin, strewn with bits of shell and driftwood. He doubts that's a coincidence. "Time to come with me," he says, and opens the shadows.

The magic burns as he takes Toby along a part of the roads that previously was forbidden even to him; it fights Jehan's wards and casts them back enough for him to step through them. Still, when they emerge in the room they'd shared, Tybalt is gasping for breath almost as desperately as Toby.

"Tybalt?"

"I'm fine," he says. "Give me a moment." The last of the magic fades, feeling somewhat disturbingly like the falling of the tide. He straightens when it's gone, feeling his strength return. "Maeve's bones, October. She's going to hold that debt over your head."

"I know." Toby shrugs. "We had to do it anyway. Where do you think we should go?"

"Josiane's rooms seem a logical place to start." He eyes her with amusement. "Not when you look like yourself, though."

"You know how my illusions are."

He does. It's curious, considering her heritage. Or the heritage she claims. "Desperate times, little fish."

"Fine." She snaps her fingers and her hair turns dark, rusty red, her eyes green, her face becoming more elongated. "How's this?"

"Put on a gown and I wouldn't know it's you," he says.

"What about you?"

He gives her a sarcastic look and shifts, walking over to the closet and then switching his tail expectantly.

"I really hate you," she says, going over and pulling out a gown. It has no heat, though, and she doesn't say anything as she goes behind the bathing screen and changes.

When she emerges, the illusion hides her knives, as well. "I'm going to have a hell of a headache."

He mewls and nudges the thermos she set down with his nose.

She sighs. "I know." She picks it up. "Okay. Let's go."

He slinks down the hall, doing his best not to be seen. Toby walks with a kind of regal detachment that he'd never associate with her if he didn't realize how thoroughly she's hiding. It's effective, and they arrive at Josiane's quarters without an alarm being sounded.

He's amused, but not surprised, when Toby pulls a bobby pin from her bosom and begins picking the lock. Tybalt keeps watch, but no one comes by this section of hallway. It's not really surprising, he thinks; the castle is obviously collectively wary of Josiane. Why encounter her when it could be so easily avoided?

He shifts back to human as they enter her apartments, poised for a fight. They're empty, though, a fact he realizes as soon as he takes in the smell of the quarters.

"We're safe," he says at the same time Toby says, "Damn it, where is she?"

"The throne room, most likely," Tybalt says, amused in spite of himself.

"I guess we can take this time to gather evidence." Toby sounds like she'd much rather start stabbing things. Tybalt smiles and goes directly to Josiane's bedroom.

"We're not bothering to check the living room?"

"She doesn't ward her doors," Tybalt says. "She trusts the people in this castle - or, more likely, trusts them to fear her. They won't come into her bedroom, but there's reason for them to be in her living room."

"You know the mind of the Divided Courts more than you want to admit."

He doesn't miss the mocking lilt of "Divided Courts", but his irritation is lost in surprise that Toby's listened to his manners of speech that much. He dismisses that thought as foolish, though, and begins rifling through Josiane's desk drawers.

"Oh, oak and ash," Toby says.

Tybalt turns. She's holding up a leather-bound journal.

Surely Josiane wouldn't be foolish enough to put anything revelatory in it…but then, Tybalt thinks, the Snow Kingdoms have long been isolated. "What does it say?"

Toby opens it, flipping through it. "It would take me forever to read all this. Her handwriting's tiny." She flips to a page near the back, frowning. "Yesterday's entry," she says. "'I am frightened. His power grows, and his madness with it. I am the Ice Witch to his subjects, the controlling madwoman behind the instability. If they knew the truth of his blood, they would scream.' Christ." She closes the journal with a disgusted thump. "Do all fae have to be - "

Her eyes widen even as Tybalt makes the connection laid out in the journal. "Jehan," Toby breathes. "Oberon's balls, she's trying to control Jehan. That's why she's here."

Tybalt feels the pit of his stomach twist. Not Jehan. It can't be. But…

"Tybalt. How old is Jehan?"

"As old as any of us."

"And how likely is it that he's just - gone crazy?"

"I would like to say it's not likely at all," Tybalt says. "But Josiane has no reason to lie in her own journal. I know of no one in the Snow Kingdoms with that kind of long-reaching treachery. If we don't count on it being true, we should at least consider the possibility."

"Great," she says. "The possibility of a Daoine Sidhe so old he might as well be a Firstborn, or a Daoine Sidhe so crazy she's written a fake journal. Can't wait."

"It makes sense." He doesn't want it to, but it does. "If anyone could use blood magic to do what's been done, it would be Jehan."

"And if we don't fix it - kill him - then Faerie plunges into chaos. I know." Toby looks grim. "I know where we need to go next, then."

"The throne room?"

"The throne room."

Tybalt wants - well, many things. But right now he wants to kiss her. He's suddenly worried that he's about to watch her die, and his mind is doing the complicated reverse of what it did the first time he saw her after her years in the pond, even despite his doubts about her then.

"Is my illusion falling or something?" She reaches up, tucking her hair beyond her ear.

He hadn't even noticed the illusion; her smell hasn't changed, and to him she is still unmistakably herself. "No," he says, shaking himself and forcing his idiotic thoughts down. "Shall we go to the throne room, then?"

"I guess we should," Toby says. "I wish I'd brought a sword. Or five swords."

Tybalt doesn't say what he's thinking, which is that her knives and a sword will be roughly equally effective if Jehan is truly mad. "Let's go," he says instead, and shifts.

The walk to the throne room feels much like how Tybalt imagines a walk to his own execution would be. He tries not to think about that, but with Toby all but bristling in agitation next to him, it's difficult. He doesn't know what it is that means they don't encounter anyone in the halls, but it's eerie and doesn't help his mood at all.

Just outside the throne room, Toby nods at Tybalt and Tybalt shifts back to human. "Let me take the lead on this, okay?" Toby says.

Tybalt wants to insist on putting himself between her and Jehan, but he knows how unwise that would be. He's not sure he'd resurrect here, so far from his Kingdom, and Jehan is far, far older than Tybalt, and much more powerful. So he nods. "Lead the way, little fish."

He cannot reach out to her, so he lets his endearment speak for him - though he doubts she sees it that way. She does nod at him, though, before stepping into the throne room. He takes a deep breath and follows.

Josiane is standing behind Jehan again, hand on his shoulder. The throne room is again empty. Tybalt tries to see the fear expressed in her journal on her face, and utterly fails.

Whether or not her journal was truthful, she is very, very good at subterfuge.

"Tybalt," she says. "Would you tell your companion to release her illusion, please? Seeing a changeling dressed as a pureblood is distasteful to the eyes."

"Tybalt doesn't tell me to do anything," Toby says. The disguise vanishes. Tybalt is surprised by how relieved he feels. "We lied about that. Oops. Then again, we haven't been the only ones lying, have we?"

"No," Josiane says pleasantly. "I assume whoever convinced Jehan you were worthy of the Snow Kingdoms was also quite the liar."

That tells Tybalt all he needs to know. He's working out a way to signal to Toby when he realizes that he and Toby have had the same thought.

"So you're protecting the kingdom against him," Toby says, nodding to Jehan. "Maybe you should let him speak for himself."

Daoine Sidhe are not the most ruddy-complexioned people in the world, but Josiane pales all the same. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"If that were true, you wouldn't just deny it," Toby says. Her tone is pleasant, for now - level, even. But Tybalt can hear the anger in it. "You're trying to keep him from going too crazy, but you haven't succeeded. He's ripping holes in the universe, Josiane. He nearly killed my friends. Not to mention my liege - and me. You can't protect him anymore."

Josiane removes her hand from Jehan's shoulder. "Sir Daye -"

"No," Jehan says suddenly. He sits up straighter, as though roused from sleep. "Let the little knight talk. She has things to say to me. Can't you tell how furious she is?"

Damn the old fae, really. Tybalt grits his teeth, but he doesn't say anything or let his claws come out. Not yet.

"You've broken Oberon's law," Toby says. "Your actions led to Fae dying."

"That's not Oberon's law."

"I'm pretty sure a court would find destabilizing the entirety of Faerie to be against the law," Toby says. "You should come with us. It'll be easier for you that way."

Tybalt is depressingly not surprised when Jehan pulls a dark red crystal out of his tunic. "I really don't think I'll be doing that."

Toby sighs. "Right, okay. Let the record show that the crazy Daoine Sidhe resisted arrest." She pulls out her iron knife.

Tybalt doesn't flinch away, but it's a near thing. Josiane does. Jehan just eyes it with mild interest. "You really think you can stop me," he says as though it's a new idea.

"I really think I can try," Toby says, and starts walking toward the throne.

Tybalt follows, but before they've gotten more than a couple steps, Jehan laughs and grips the crystal, driving it into thin air - or what should be thin air. The scent of blood is suddenly thick in the air, and Tybalt recoils when Jehan yanks the crystal up and the ragged tear appears out of nowhere.

It's wrong; Tybalt can feel the wrongness rising in his throat like bile. He doesn't have time to protest, though, because - he expects Jehan to leap through. He doesn't expect dozens of frost goblins to stream through the tear, attacking Toby and Tybalt himself.

"With me," Jehan snarls as Toby and Tybalt begin fighting the frost goblins, grabbing Josiane's wrist and dragging her away. He stabs the air again, opens up another tear, and they leap through it. It closes behind them with a thundering clap.

Toby's snarling curses and fighting, and Tybalt is cutting frost goblins to bits with his claws. But this is useless, this is a distraction. Anger fuels Tybalt, and somehow he and Toby wind up back-to-back, cutting and clawing until, finally, the last of the frost goblins falls to the ground.

They're surrounded by fragments of ice when they turn to each other. Tybalt opens his mouth to say - Maeve only knows, most likely something sarcastic. Toby beats him to it, though, saying, "That was anticlimactic."

"We know our villain now," Tybalt points out.

"And we know he'll be hard to kill. And that he has a hostage." Toby rubs a hand over her face. "Tybalt…"

"I know," Tybalt says, surprised to find that he does, actually, understand. "We'll find a way to track him."

"No," Toby says. "I mean, yes - I know a way. You're going to be mad, though. Along with everyone else."

"Lovely," Tybalt says. "I'm on the edge of my seat."

"I know what his magic smells like," Toby says. "And we can go to his room. He'll have bled there. I can track him."

She has an oddly determined look on her face that Tybalt's not sure what to do with. He suspects she's holding back, and he's never heard of this magic being something Daoine Sidhe can do; but he knows Toby improvises far more than she exercises talents she's been taught.

And besides, he's more or less sworn to follow her.

"Very well," he says. "Let's go."

He realizes, as they walk undisguised through the halls, that the routes to Josiane's room and the throne room weren't just conspicuously deserted: the entire castle is. If anyone's in it, it's not in the routes any member of the Court will take. Tybalt is not easily discomfited, but right now it's all he can do to keep his wits about him and not flee the castle. The eerie silence is almost too much to bear.

"This is fucking creepy," Toby mutters as they reach Jehan's room. Tybalt agrees, down to the human curse that slices the tense air with an unnatural ease.

He's not surprised to find Jehan's door locked without wards. Toby doesn't bother picking the lock, though; she pounds the hilt of her knife on the doorknob viciously, breaking it.

"We're looking for a knife," Toby says. "I don't think…with that type of blood magic, you can't just clean the blade the normal way. And I don't think he's really sane enough to do things like ritualistic cleansing of a silver blade."

"Of course," Tybalt says. He raises his head, scenting the air. It's heavy with blood, of course; even were Jehan not insane, he'd still be Daoine Sidhe. But there's a fresher tang of it that he follows through the extensive suite of rooms, until he runs into -

A wall. Of course Jehan would have some sort of secret room. "October," he calls.

She comes in. Her face falls when she sees the wall. "Let me guess, we should start looking for a mysterious catch or hollow panel."

"The very same," Tybalt says.

"How do you even find a hidden room if the walls are made of ice? …wait."

Tybalt raises his eyebrows. "Please, share your undoubtedly genius plan."

"Ice," Toby says. "Ice melts."

"No," Tybalt says immediately.

"You're welcome to tell me if you have a better idea."

Tybalt would like to say he does, but they could search for the catch for hours and not find it. "Very well," he sighs.

"Great," Toby says. "Find everything that's flammable and probably not evidence. We've got a passageway to break into."

They stack up chairs, curtains, rugs, and bedsheets into an enormous pile in front of the ice wall. Tybalt's about to ask Toby how she intends to start the fire when Toby comes back with a stick of burning wood from the fire in the sitting room, and -

He frowns. "Is that liquor?"

"I'm not sure what kind, but does it matter?" Toby douses the pile liberally, then steps back and throws the burning branch on it all.

It catches alight immediately, flames leaping up the wall. At first Tybalt thinks their plan has failed; it is, after all, magical ice, and doesn't melt despite the warm air and bodies that touch it. But the fire rages on, and finally, the wall begins to melt.

And then it simply crumbles away, revealing a dark hallway.

"Okay," Toby says. She drags a rug that they didn't burn over and tosses it over the remainder of the fire. "Let's go."

They walk across the smoking rug and into the hallway. It's nearly pitch black, but he can see perfectly. It's not until Toby says, "If only I could call witchlight," that he remembers her changeling eyes.

"Take my hand," he says, tapping her wrist.

Her pause tells him she's not happy about it, but she sighs and laces her fingers with his.

They walk down the tunnel together, Tybalt ignoring the vague tingling of the hand pressed against Toby's. The scent of Jehan's blood is growing, and the tunnel is fairly short. At the end of it is a room, dimly lit with glowing light.

It's well-appointed, but Tybalt barely notices the furnishings, because Toby is honing in on the knife lying at the strange altar.

She doesn't bother to see if it's warded, simply picks it up. "This'll work," she says, voice a little low and…

Tybalt's not sure what he's hearing, actually. He steps back as she walks over and drops to her knees in the center of the small room.

The surface here is still ice, but it's dull ice. Dead ice, Tybalt thinks. He takes a deep breath and watches as October uses her own knife to slice her palm open.

"Tell me where you are," she mutters. "Tell me…" She lets her blood drip on the knife, then lifts it to her mouth, licking the drops off. Jehan's blood comes with it, leaving a smudge clean on the blade.

She shudders - from the taste or her magic, Tybalt's not certain. He can smell her magic, though, taking over even the blood in the room. He's not surprised when she lifts her gaze and her eyes are blank, gaze far away; nor is he truly surprised when she lifts her hand and licks her own palm, entire body shuddering.

When she speaks, her voice isn't entirely hers. "He has gone to a place no one sees," she says. "Take the shadowed roads. I will break us through the barrier."

"Toby?" She at least isn't bleeding terribly profusely, but the way the remains of Jehan's blood has begun to shimmer on the blade is far from comforting.

"Call the shadows."

He finds he cannot disobey her. He gathers the shadows and takes her non-bloodied hand, pulling her into them.

She doesn't breathe, but as they walk, shifting through the Snow Kingdoms, the world racing around him, he can feel her subtly guiding him, as though she's turned herself into a homing beacon. Suddenly, though, she reaches out, other hand bleeding freely once again, and stabs the shadows in front of them with the bloody knife.

It's a similar technique to that which Jehan used, only tinged with Toby's power and twice as frightening for it. But Tybalt leads them out, and the rip closes behind them.

He's not sure where they are. They have to still be in the Snow Kingdoms, but it's nowhere Tybalt recognizes. They're standing in a rough-hewn cave, one made of rusty red rock, not ice. The color isn't promising, nor is the wind that howls outside. He only takes all that in in a second's attention, however, because Toby is still clutching the blade, but she's leaning down with her hands on her knees.

"Toby?"

"I'm fine," she says. "My thermos…" She fumbles it out of her coat and into her hands, unscrewing it. She's covered in blood and shaking a little. It might be fairly typical for Toby, but it angers Tybalt more than it should. It's been a short time since Devin and the Winterrose nearly killed her.

"Here," he says. "Let's sit."

"We need to find Jehan."

"You just did magic great enough that if you don't rest at least a little, you'll be incapacitated," he says. He's not going to let himself think about what will happen if she reaches her wall before they've apprehended Jehan.

"I know," she says. "I know." She sits down on an outcropping of rock, taking deep breaths. Tybalt sits next to her. He's shocked to silence when, after a moment, Toby leans and rests her head on his shoulder.

"I hate the old fae," she says, laughing hollowly.

"You could let go of his knife."

"No," she says. "That's my connection to him. That's how we're going to find him."

"Lovely."

"Daoine Sidhe magic always is."

He's uncertain about that for several reasons, but he doesn't voice any of them. Instead he puts an arm around her and rubs her shoulder until, after far too few minutes for his comfort, she finishes her coffee and sits upright.

"Okay." She sets the thermos down on the rock. "Let's go."

"You're sure?"

"This magic knife thing isn't comfortable," she says, "and we both know I'm running on borrowed time, here. Yes. Let's go."

"Of course," he says. He stands and takes her arm, supporting her. He's sure she'd like to argue, but he's also sure she doesn't have the resources. She lets him support her as he guides them down into the depths of the cave.

"What is this place, anyway?" Toby says.

"I can't say," Tybalt says. "It might be where Jehan was born."

Toby shivers. "Wonderful." She speeds up a little, even though - despite Tybalt's help - she's half-limping. They go down dimly lit hallways that twist and turn, until suddenly, the hallway opens up into a huge, soaring room.

"Oh, no," Toby says quietly. Tybalt follows her gaze.

Jehan is sitting on a stone-hewn throne. Josiane is slumped next to him, dead.

Tybalt glances down when he hears the dripping. Toby's bleeding again. She's also standing up straight, pulling away from Tybalt, gathering strength around herself so obviously Tybalt's neck prickles.

When she speaks, her voice echoes. "You really shouldn't have done that."

"Borrowed power is all well and good," Jehan says. He sounds amused. "But what will you do when the spark of your life runs out, changeling?"

"Take you with me," Toby says. She throws the knife.

No one in the room has the power to slow time, but it seems to slow anyway, the air thickening. Jehan tears the world open with such force that he and Toby fall several steps back. But he's not fast enough; the knife finds his chest with a screaming terror, and the world beyond the tear flickers to reveal Shadowed Hills. Toby runs forward then, drawing her iron knife, and drives it into Jehan's stomach.

But Jehan laughs. "Not yet," he says. "Not yet, changeling." He pulls both knives out and they fall to the ground; he reaches out and grabs Toby, hand circling her neck as he lifts her in the air. She kicks, but her feet find only air, and Tybalt realizes very suddenly that she's going to be thrown to Shadowed Hills. Or anyway, her body will.

So he does the only thing he can do: darts forward, grabs both knives, and stabs Jehan in the neck, ripping them apart so that his head falls to the ground.

The rip begins shrinking at the same there's a mighty roar and the walls start to shake. Tybalt acts on instinct, tossing Jehan's head through the rip just before it closes and grabbing Toby's prone body, pulling them into the shadows.

But he's misjudged; he's not weak, but Toby is, and he can't keep her alive for long. Jehan's magic chases them into the shadows, pushing at them, tearing into Tybalt. He cannot take the roads from the Snow Kingdoms; they're lost, and he's not sure if he or Toby is screaming. So he drops them out - he doesn't know where - and makes sure to shield Toby's body with his as the last of Jehan's magic rushes past them, slamming into him and dissipating.

He doesn't know where they are. He's going to get up and find out, but before he manages to, he slumps to Toby's side and passes out.

When he wakes up, his first thought is that Toby must surely be dead. His second thought is that wherever they are, it's dark and he's too weak to summon the shadows.

His third thought is that if Toby's dead, it's odd that someone is stroking his back, over and over.

"Toby?" he rasps.

"That's me," she says. "Also, good job not being dead."

"I'm not the one who was slicing into myself," he says.

"No, you were just the one who got the blowback of Jehan's magic and dragged me through the Shadowed Roads."

She sounds oddly brittle; he doesn't know why. "Where are we?"

"I don't know," she says. "In some kind of cave. It's not that big, maybe closet-sized."

"Air?"

In response, she lifts his hand. He can feel a very slight breeze.

"Ah," he says. They could be anywhere.

"Yeah." She drops his hand, but she doesn't resume stroking his back. "So, we might die."

"I will summon the shadows."

"It's been long enough that my headache's faded," Toby says. "Hours. Maybe a day. If you can't feel them now…"

Then they might never come. Their trip might have been one-way. "Wonderful."

She laughs. It's a bitter sound, one that it pains him to hear. "At least Sylvester will have Jehan's head. I'm sure he can draw conclusions from that."

"He'll ride the blood and see what we did. We won't be forgotten."

"You'll have to forgive me if that's not exactly a comfort," Toby says.

Tybalt sits up. His eyes are adjusting; there's a very small amount of light coming from the crack in the cave. "Shouldn't we be able to tunnel out?"

"Tried it," Toby says. "With my last knife, actually. The rock's like diamond. We'd shred our hands and not move an inch."

Better and better. He sits up. "Then," he says, "it has been an honor, Sir Daye."

She shudders. "Don't call me that."

"There's no reason to give up on dignity just because we're going to starve, October."

"I'm not starving," Toby says. "I have my knife, remember?"

"That's foolish."

"Forgive me for not really caring."

Her voice is a mockery of his own. He means to say something sarcastic, but instead he finds himself reaching out and touching her shoulder. "Toby."

"What?"

He wants to tell her. He tried so hard to make her hate him, and it's entirely possible she still does; but she nearly died in Jehan's cave, and if they're both going to die here - he will do the deed to himself after Toby dies on her own - then he should tell her. He can't hate her, he can't not love her, and she should know. He owes her that much. He never intended to lie to her before he chose to execute his plan.

But he finds he can't make himself form the words. "Toby," he says again instead, and leans in to kiss her.

For a second, she kisses back, but then she pulls away. "No," she says weakly. "We can't just fuck because we're going to die."

"Why not?"

"That's…I don't like you. You - we don't have to pretend. There's no point to pretending."

"We might as well indulge in pleasures of the flesh before we slit our own throats. You might find me repellent, but I know that doesn't extend to the physical."

Toby's silent for long enough that Tybalt begins to think erring on the macabre side was a bad idea. But then Toby says, "Fuck it, yeah, okay."

She reaches for him, then, pulling him in and kissing him. Her mouth still tastes like blood and coffee, and her fingers flex against the back of his neck. It's probably wrong to be intrigued by the power that nearly killed her when she wielded it; he won't ever get the chance to solve the mystery of her blood after all. But she's here, with all of her power, and he can kiss her, tangling his fingers in her hair and pulling her close.

The light is dim enough that Tybalt doubts she can see anything. He can see her, though, and he can admit she's beautiful, strange in the way all changelings are to him, but dangerous beyond almost anyone he's ever met. She pushes him against the rough wall of the cave and climbs into his lap, kissing him frantically.

She's beautiful even like this, desperate to cling to life even after acknowledging she plans to end hers. Her fingers bruise the back of his neck, his shoulders, and she tears their lips apart to kiss his neck and collarbone. She winds up roughly hauling him down to the ground again, stretching out over him and kissing him and kissing him.

He beings to wonder if they'll do anything else - not that he minds this, but the way her hips are grinding against him is distracting. Then she leans up and pulls her bloody bodice down.

Her skin is stained pink with blood beneath it, but he doesn't care. He sits up and cups her breasts, rolling the nipples between his fingers and watching her shudder.

Her body is familiar to him now, her every reaction easy for him to predict. He wants more of this; he never wants it to end. But they're going to die here, and he knows Toby will refuse to die slowly, hoping for a rescue even as life leaves her body.

For starters, he thinks with a hopeless kind of love, she'd go insane and kill him for want of coffee within the first day.

"Why are you smiling?" she says.

"I didn't realize you could see."

"Only a little," she says. "Your teeth are -" Her breath catches when he rolls them and bites her collarbone - "bright."

"You're here," he says. "I'm smiling because we're going to die, but we're not exactly going to be alone. Or…unsatisfied."

"Speak for yourself," she says, but it has no bite to it, and she tugs his hair when he moves his mouth to her breasts.

He does what he can't say, worshipping her with his mouth. He's still surprised, though, when she doesn't kick him when he lifts her skirts.

He still feels the need to ask, though. "May I?" he says, trailing a finger up her thigh.

"Are you seriously asking if you can eat me out?"

The bluntness of modern women has ceased to surprise him, but he's glad she can't see well enough to notice his slight flush. "My dear October, your actions during our assignations are less than predictable. Asking seems wise."

She laughs disbelievingly. "Yeah," she says. "I - go for it. Oberon's teeth, believe me, you're more than welcome to."

"I'm honored," he says. He forgoes talking after that, though, kissing her thigh before tugging her dress all the way off.

He tugs her white underwear down right away, kissing her hip and her thighs, everywhere he can reach. She's a little ticklish, and he hates that he's discovering that now; she hid it from him before quite effectively. He pushes her legs a little farther apart and says, "May I make a request?"

"As long as it doesn't involve thinking or…things. Yes."

He's somewhat delighted by how distracted she already is. "Make noise."

He can almost see her blinking in confusion. "What?"

"You bite your tongue, cover your mouth with your hand." He drags his tongue up her thigh. "I'm requesting that you not."

"Oh. Well. Okay, I guess."

"Good," he says, and rubs a thumb up her folds, pressing against her clit.

"Oh," she says distantly. "I…oh. Okay."

He's a little surprised at her already losing coherence, but then, this isn't exactly a normal situation. He forgoes thinking about it in favor of setting his mouth on her, following the line of his thumb with his tongue, savoring the way she lets herself gasp and make a tiny noise.

He wishes he could talk while he did this. If they were going to live, if he had any real belief of that, he'd make plans to do this again, only stopping to wind her up by talking to her and using his fingers. He knows making her angry with him is a good way to keep her - interested. It's one of his favorite things about her.

But he doesn't even have tomorrow, so instead of dwelling on that, he sucks her clit lightly and strokes her folds, rubbing a hand over her hip when she rocks back and forth against his mouth.

It's not a surprise, really, that her reaction to being asked to make noise is to let loose a string of curses. They sound strangely like endearments, however, mixed in with his name as he slowly works her closer to the edge. She pets his hair, then tugs as he tongues at her clit and slips two fingers inside her.

He never wants it to end. Her curses get less and less recognizable, until she's just making strangled noises, thrashing under him. The smell and taste of her, the feel of her skin, the way she tightens around his fingers - Tybalt's so turned on he almost hurts from it, and when he finally makes her come, he spends some minutes after breathing against her hip, stroking her as she shudders and occasionally kissing whatever skin is nearest him.

Finally, though, she tugs his hair. "Come up," she says. "Tybalt, I need - come here."

He goes quickly, kissing her as he does it. He's not surprised when she tugs off his shirt, but he is when she opens his pants and jerks him off quickly. He thrusts against her, suddenly a thousand times more desperate. "Wait," Toby says, and pulls her hand away with a breathy laugh. "I got carried away."

He freezes.

"No, no, take them off. That's…you should definitely take them off."

Now Tybalt raises his eyebrows, but he does as she says.

"I don't have the energy to ride you," she says, hands roaming all over his back and down to his ass. "Sorry."

"No need to apologize." He kisses her, then does it again, because she's there and he can. He's entranced by her, even more so when she guides him inside her and wraps her legs around his hips as though they've been doing this for years.

He wishes they had been, though he can't imagine what he would have done when she disappeared if he had this closeness to miss.

"Toby," he says quietly, thrusting.

She doesn't tell him not to talk, but she does pull him down and kiss him, rocking her hips. It's an order, more or less, and he finds himself inclined to obey. He fucks her slowly, then quickly, trying for self-control he knows he has but failing more often than not. She doesn't protest - does, in fact, move with him, rubbing her own clit in time with their movements. He can kiss her shoulders here, her cheeks, her mouth, letting those actions say what she won't let him - though really, if she allowed it, he still isn't sure he could make the words come out.

It doesn't matter. He's surrounded by her, and he knows this is going to end with him following her into death - out of necessity, but also simply because there is no extreme he wouldn't go to in order to honor his promise to her.

She goes, often thoughtlessly, sometimes suicidally. He follows. He won't forsake everything; he wouldn't betray his Court for her. But he can't regret coming to a point where he has to give his life.

Those thoughts fly through his mind at a frenetic pace, taking up his senses and then receding until she's all he can feel, touch, smell, see. He comes inside her with a low groan, kissing her until he almost blacks out again.

He has to roll to the side immediately, his arms shaking as his vision fills with stars. He's surprised when she leans in and tucks herself against him, curling an arm around him.

"We don't have to yet," she says. "Just - a little more of this."

He's waited for an execution once before. It wasn't half this sweet or this painful. It's nearly self-defense when he starts drowsing, but he justifies it with the knowledge that Toby's breathing has slowed, too.

They wake up some time later. It's still dark; Tybalt grabs Toby's knife and tests the opening in the rock to ensure that it's still diamond-hard. That hasn't changed. Their little plan is still on.

"Toby."

"I'm awake." Her voice is quiet and alert. "Is it time?"

His throat is scratchy with how thirsty he is. He doesn't know how long it's been; exerting themselves with sex wouldn't have been smart if they were trying to conserve energy and water, but they weren't. Of course, now that means the point of no return is approaching rapidly.

"Yes," he says finally. "It's time for us to go, little fish." He tilts her chin up and kisses her, pressing the knife into her hand.

Suddenly, pink-tinged light blazes in their prison. Toby jumps away from him immediately, but it's too late: Sylvester Torquill is standing at the entrance to the Rose Road, eyebrows raised. "Halt," he calls behind them.

He's very deliberately looking at a point beyond both their heads, which tells Tybalt that he saw more than enough. "It's good to see you two aren't dead. Now please, I beg of you, get dressed," Torquill says into the ensuing silence.

"Just one minute," Toby says. Tybalt's never heard her sound that meek before. He might laugh at the humor of it later, but right now he's dressing as quickly as he can, hopping away when he knocks into Toby like he's been burned.

He would dearly love to shift right now, but Torquill's the one with control over their only way out - and Tybalt finds, with a kind of rushing feeling, that he's really not ready to die. So he slips his shoes on, finally, and says, "Duke Torquill. I owe you a debt of gratitude."

Torquill inclines his head, finally looking at Tybalt. "I'm aware," he says. "Are you two ready?"

It's somewhat impressive, the menace he imbues that question with.

"We're ready." Toby sounds more like herself. Of course, that means she marches out with her knife at her side, without looking back at Tybalt.

Torquill raises his eyebrows at Tybalt. Tybalt shakes his head, rueful, and follows Toby out of their prison.

The trip along the Rose Road is relatively short. Tybalt makes it in the company of five soldiers with about twenty weapons between them, all of which stand between himself and Toby. Sylvester doesn't say anything as they walk, but Tybalt assumes they drew the correct conclusions from riding Jehan's blood. They might not be as good at it as Toby, but Tybalt's fairly certain their involvement would be clear.

When they get back to Shadowed Hills, Torquill takes hold of Toby and pulls her into a crushing hug. Toby slumps against him, closing her eyes; for the first time since they left to bring Josiane to justice, Tybalt can see just how tired she is. Torquill doesn't say anything, only kisses her forehead when he pulls away.

Tybalt clears his throat. "Unfortunately, I should return to my court," he says. "I've been away much too long. Raj is probably battling multiple insurrections by now."

"You saved Toby's life," Torquill says.

Tybalt lets himself smile narrowly. "And she saved Faerie, and you saved us. I owe a debt to Shadowed Hills, one I can most likely never repay. But if you need my services, you need only ask the nearest cat, and I will come."

It's cowardly and he knows it; that doesn't stop him from pulling the shadows around him without ever looking Toby in the eye.

When he steps out of the shadows, his Court is quiet and relatively empty. That's not necessarily a good sign, but Raj crashing into him is.

Tybalt's never discouraged Raj from expressing emotion when appropriate. Now, he wraps his arms around Raj. "I'll need a full report," he says after a long moment.

Raj just presses his face into Tybalt's chest and holds him tighter. Just before Tybalt's ready to chastise him, he steps back.

"Everything is well," he says. "We've been hunting and living well. No one has challenged me. You…" He swallows. "People worried you were dead."

If worry had become assumption, there would have been challenges. One of them probably would have succeeded. "You did well," Tybalt says.

"Wait until you've seen everything before you say that," Raj says, but he smiles weakly.

Tybalt can't help but feel a little guilty, like he's somehow not done anything for his Kingdom because he's slept with Toby several times. It's illogical and right now isn't a time for him to indulge in being maudlin, though, so he says, "Show me, and I'll make that judgment."

He sees Elaine, Julie, and dozens of others. They tend to shift and rub against his ankles, an easy greeting that Tybalt knows would look strange to outsiders. Raj has kept stores of meat up and the children are playing as happily as they ever were. He'll be a good king someday - sooner, Tybalt thinks, than Raj himself probably assumes. But there is more than one way for a Cait Sidhe to take the throne, even if violence is the most comforting route.

"You look tired," Raj says quietly when they return to one of the common rooms, overlooking adult cats teaching young ones how to hunt.

"I am," Tybalt says honestly. "I'll be sleeping in the main room tonight, though."

"Really?" The more powerful members of the court sleep in separate, smaller rooms; Raj and Tybalt often sleep alone.

Tybalt nods. "I've been away too long. And when I've been here, my mind has not always been…dedicated to my Court."

"It's not your fault," Raj says. He has the low fierceness that comes from blaming Toby for something without ever having met her.

Tybalt smiles, suddenly feeling as tired as Raj said he looks. "I'll take you soon to meet Sir Daye," he says. "We owe her an immeasurable debt. You'll most likely inherit it."

"She's a changeling," Raj says.

"She's a hero," Tybalt replies.

No one in there world throws the word around easily, least of all about a member of the Divided Courts; heroism is a different sort of subject for cats. It silences Raj, like Tybalt knew it would.

He desperately needs to sleep. And to stop thinking and having conversations about Toby.

To address that need, he says, "Do you require anything else? That mattress over there looks more than comfortable enough to justify my rest."

"No," Raj says. "I'll notify the others to leave you alone."

"Request quiet," Tybalt says, "but also, company. My time away has weakened me."

Raj nods. "I'm glad. That you're back."

"As am I," Tybalt says. He changes and mirrors his subjects, rubbing against Raj's ankles, before walking over to the mattress and hopping up on it. His people don't become animals when they shift, but Tybalt has always found his mind clears a little more, and now is no exception. When he falls asleep, he's considerably less agitated. He doesn't dream.

Returning home is oddly anti-climactic. He was away for, in total, almost two weeks. Cait Sidhe may roam far, but the King is strongly anchored in his Court, and ordinarily such an absence would be cause for a challenge. Alex and Renay are still healing, however, and there are scars from the frost goblins throughout the main hall. No one challenges him. There's grumbling about being in a changeling's debt, from Samson in particular, but Tybalt has never heeded the complaints of ineffective malcontents.

He spends a considerable amount of time in audiences and teaching Raj, but he spends almost as much time alone. He has, over the years, collected more books than a cat really needs. He can't bring himself to give them away, though, so they sit in haphazard piles in the far corners of his room. He flatly refuses to purchase or steal or even take abandoned bookshelves. Stacks work just as well, anyway.

So: he spends a significant portion of time reading. Older classics, mostly, Shakespeare and Chaucer and Milton. He gets a few odd looks, as normally his time would be spent with younger cats, in governance, or out solidifying his kingdom's power, but the strange recent events justify his reticence.

After five days of that, though, he has to leave. He's getting stir-crazy. So he tells Raj the Court is his and enters the mortal world in cat form, coming out of an alley near the ocean.

He ends up curled up on a wharf, watching the water (and keeping up a deep suspicion of anyone who would force him to come into contact with it). He thinks about Toby because he can't help himself. In the end, his plot to fall out of love with her via her hatred of him worked extremely poorly. He'd like to pretend he could put it into practice again, but the truth is that he couldn't bring himself to hurt her, or lie to her, again. And on top of that - on top of that, he doesn't want to. He's always tended more towards being maudlin than he'd really prefer, and he knows that pushing her away would hurt a humiliating amount.

Damn Toby. Damn his own treacherous emotions.

He spends a long time on the wharf. When he returns, in upright form again, it's to find Raj waiting for him in his room.

"Raj?"

"Uncle?"

Tybalt raises his eyebrows.

Raj takes a deep breath. "I would like to meet Sir Daye."

Of course. Why not? "Explain your reasoning, please. I'm afraid I'm not in the habit of arranging audiences between my heir and the…changeling in whose debt we exist."

Raj wrinkles his nose. "What?"

He sometimes regrets raising Raj so modernly. "Explain your reasoning," he says again, choosing not to try to translate the admittedly snide remark.

"She saved us. I mean, you helped." Tybalt snorts. "But she's the one who did all the detective work, and when you spoke to us you said we're in her debt. If I'm going to be king someday, it's my debt too. I should know who's holding it. Who I might have to give it to."

"Sir Daye is mortal," Tybalt points out. "She could die before she chooses to call the debt in."

Raj juts his chin out and says, "Fae can be killed. They can die before paying a debt. We still owe her, as a Court. And I am your heir."

It occurs to Tybalt that Raj would probably actually like Toby. A lot. "Of course," he says. "I'll arrange it. Is there anything else?"

Raj looks a strange combination of relieved and shame-faced, but he shakes his head and goes to Tybalt's door. He pauses just before leaving, though, saying, "Uncle…"

Tybalt suspects he knows what Raj wants to say. He makes himself look as cold, as uncommunicative as he can. "Nephew."

"…Sleep well," Raj says finally, and leaves.

Tybalt lies down and closes his eyes. For a moment, Anne dances in his vision. Her whipcord muscled arms, her sun-reddened skin and ruddy hair. Her laugh. You're brooding, she'd say. The Sidhe, Faerie's gift to the Irish, brooding like an Englishman who doesn't know what to do with all the gold he left in the rain. Come out of it, Rand. The day is young.

She liked lecturing him. If he's being honest with himself, he liked letting her.

Is he brooding about Toby? He's been put through so many ridiculous, overblown emotional states recently that he's honestly not sure. He cares for her; that he knows. He has for a long time. He's tried to suppress it, but if fourteen years of her being Maeve-knows-where didn't kill it, then he doubts it will truly die until long after she does.

At least, he thinks bitterly, she's not likely to have a long lifespan. Heroes rarely do.

He doesn't dream. When he wakes up, night is falling and he has a single duty foremost in his mind. He promised Raj he would arrange a meeting between him and Toby, so it falls to him to set that meeting up.

Another could do it, of course, but Tybalt isn't that trusting.

He finds Toby easily, stepping through the shadows as he follows her scent. She hasn't taken a case yet; she's sitting on the stoop outside her apartment, staring into space.

"Hello."

She stiffens and narrows her eyes. Tybalt feels a bolt of resignation. They're back to this, then. "Wonderful. Just what I needed."

"I'm sure you had scintillating plans for tonight," Tybalt says. "Believe me when I say I would love to hear them. But that's not why I'm here."

"Then spit it out. I'm not in the mood to do the Cait Sidhe any more favors."

"I'm not asking for myself," he says. "But I do think it is a reasonable request."

She raises her eyebrows. "Request away, then."

"Raj wants to meet you."

It's obvious she's not expecting that. She sits up a little straighter, frowning. "Your heir?"

"He's quite interested in the woman who holds the Kingdom's greatest debt."

"Only debt, I'd think," she mutters.

He doesn't correct her.

"Sure," she says. "If he actually wants to meet me."

There are layers of suspicion in that statement that he honestly can't unravel or even begin to understand. "I will bring him along momentarily, then?"

She lets the silence draw out for a long time before saying, "Oh, you're waiting for my answer? I figured you'd just step into the shadows."

He feels like an idiot for flushing, but then, that was probably deserved.

"Sure," she says. "I'll be inside. Knock when you get there." She's standing up and turning away from him before he even reaches for the shadows.

He chooses to ignore the strange mix of enmity and familiarity; dwelling on it wouldn't serve Raj, and that's the point of this whole visit. He travels to his Court, has a cat bring Raj, and says, "She's agreed to meet you."

His eyes widen slightly. "Oh. Good."

"…well?" Tybalt says when Raj doesn't reach for the shadows.

Raj's eyes widen even more. "Now?"

"She's a busy woman, but she hasn't taken another case yet. So yes, now," Tybalt says, a little more snappishly than is perhaps necessary.

"I…okay." Raj ruffles his hair, as though he's self-conscious, and then takes Tybalt's hand. "You may bring us into the shadows," Tybalt says. "I'll guide us."

Raj opens the Roads for them with ease, something that pleases Tybalt even as it strengthens his resolve not to think of the future. Tybalt guides them to Toby's hallway.

He notes the way Raj wrinkles his nose when he inhales. "She lives here?"

"Try not to be insulting," Tybalt says, and raises his hand to knock.

Toby yanks the door open. "That's hilarious," she says, "coming from you." She looks Raj up and down, expression curiously flat. "Come in, I guess."

Raj looks at Tybalt. He looks almost frightened, which probably shouldn't but most certainly does amuse Tybalt. "Well?" he says.

Raj scurries in.

The look Toby gives him is grim, but it's gone by the time she settles on the chair opposite the couch. "Sit," she says, waving them down. "I don't stand on ceremony and I know for a fact the Cait Sidhe don't, either."

"We can," Raj says, sitting. Anyone else would look relaxed, but Raj is Cait Sidhe and it's obvious how uncomfortable he is.

"But we normally don't," Tybalt says. "Raj, this is Toby. She saved our Court, as well as Faerie, and we owe her a rather large debt."

Toby would of course never believe him, but he doesn't actually intend for it to come out as sarcastically as it does. Toby rolls her eyes at him, an action that's obviously meant to fit in with Raj's perception of the world. Were Tybalt alone, she'd be throwing him out right now, possibly while threatening to stab him.

Then again, were Tybalt alone, he wouldn't be here.

"You do," she says to Raj, "but I'm not going to hold it over your heads."

"But debts are always like that," Raj says.

"Maybe." Toby shrugs. "I'm going to call it in. But only when I need to - and it won't be anything that hurts you."

It has the weight of a promise freely given. Tybalt has to restrain himself from shaking her: what is she doing? She knows Raj is the Prince of Cats, who will reign if Tybalt dies more quickly than he's planning. He should outlive her, but he may not; and if he doesn't, then she'll be calling her debt in with Raj. How can she promise him such a thing so easily?

But he knows how, of course: she's an idiot. Not about most things, of course, but when it comes to using her leverage rather than just flinging herself around without any direction or sense of self-preservation, she's a slight step above the average pixie and a step below anyone with a natural amount of common sense.

He doesn't realize until Raj looks at him questioningly that he's been silent for too long. "Don't thank her," he tells Raj dryly.

"I wasn't fishing for that," Toby says.

She flushes a little. Tybalt finds it charming in spite of herself.

"Well, that's good to hear," Raj says.

He sounds almost insultingly dubious, but Toby just says, "I have to go soon, but my coffee's still in the pot."

Raj looks at her blankly.

She smiles a little and says, "I could get you a glass of water or…juice, or something."

"What about -"

"You don't want the coffee," Tybalt says, knowing that if Raj finishes he'll feel obligated to try it despite Tybalt's warning.

"I could," Raj says.

"He'll have juice," Tybalt says. "I don't need anything."

Her smile, slight though it is, becomes strained. "Right," she says, and goes out into the kitchen.

Against his better judgment and everything, really, except his alarmingly limited self-control, he follows her. He can tell the exact moment she hears him - not because of his superior intuition, but because she whirls around, clutching an empty mug like a shield.

"Tybalt," she hisses.

"Calm down." He forces a lazy tone into his voice, which in turn calms him down. "This apartment is a shabby, ill-appointed mess, but the walls are thick enough."

"I've seen your Court," she says, relaxed marginally. "You don't get to call my apartment shabby."

"You've seen my room," Tybalt says. "Reconsider your statement."

She scowls and goes back to pouring her coffee and adding its accoutrements. Tybalt thinks back to his own experiences and shudders, choosing instead to say, "I can take him away, if you need to leave."

"You're so helpful when it involves getting the hell out of Dodge," Toby says.

Tybalt blinks. It's not a phrase he's familiar with, nor a cultural reference he's learned because Toby uses it so often.

"I'm calling you an asshole," Toby says. She pours orange juice into a huge glass, and adds, "and a coward."

Tybalt would like to think of himself as being the sort of man whose pride yields to logic. That doesn't explain why he takes a threatening few steps forward and says, "You're forgetting yourself."

She doesn't look afraid or even intimidated. "Tell me that wasn't you running away, then. Oberon's teeth, do you think I like trying to explain what happened to Sylvester on my own?"

"I am not Torquill's lapdog," he says. "I owe him no obligation. And you, I owe a debt. If you want to call it in on me explaining our satisfying mutual physical needs hours before death to your liege, you're welcome to. But even I don't think you're that much of a fool." He takes the orange juice and stalks back out to the living room, handing it to Raj and sitting back down.

Raj is studying him with unguarded skepticism. "I wasn't aware I was so interesting," he says.

Toby still hasn't come out of the kitchen. Presumably, she's controlling her anger. Or attempting to discover the ability to teleport.

"You're not explaining everything that happened," Raj says finally. "I can tell."

"I wasn't aware I needed to," Tybalt says, imbuing as much of a quelling tone into the statement as he can.

Raj flushes, but he falls silent.

Toby emerges a brief few moments later, carrying a mug of steaming coffee. "Before you ask, no, you can't try it," she says, sitting down in the armchair and curling her legs under her.

"You don't really look like a knight," Raj says.

Tybalt isn't surprised that Toby takes Raj's inspection with ease. "You don't look like a Prince," she says.

"Not of the Divided Courts, anyway."

Toby doesn't laugh at Raj's scorn, and Tybalt doubts Raj even notices that she almost does. It's obvious to him, though, that it's a near thing. "Well, I haven't seen many Cait Sidhe princes," she says.

Raj tilts his head. "Why did you help Uncle?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Why did you help him? I've heard the Court talk about you before. You're always angry."

Toby glances down at her coffee. Tybalt refuses to be interested in her reply; it's unlikely to be the truth when she's speaking to a child, anyway. "I just felt like I needed to," she says finally. "I'm a knight. I have honor. I couldn't turn my back on an - associate - when he was in trouble. And Faerie itself was in a lot of trouble, it turns out."

"Oh," Raj says.

They all fall silent, which as far as Tybalt is concerned is just as well. Raj has adopted too much of a reverent air towards Toby for him to be comfortable with it, and he knows Toby doesn't like scrutiny. As soon as Raj finishes his juice, Tybalt says, "We should be going."

"Right." Toby stands up so quickly Tybalt's surprised her mug doesn't slosh over. "The door's this way."

"I can find a door," Raj says as they walk down the hall. "Or I could take the shadows."

"Kid, I don't let the Cait Sidhe pop in and out of my apartment in general. I especially don't let kids."

"Well." Raj stops in the doorway and regards her haughtily. "We are in your debt."

"I know," Toby says, expression blank.

"It was good to meet you," Raj says, and brushes past Tybalt to go outside.

Intentionally or not, he's given Tybalt a moment alone with Toby. Tybalt opens his mouth to say - something, something that will make her forgive him -

But she cuts him off. "He knows me. Fine. Don't come here again."

"I wasn't aware you were still that nervous around me, October," Tybalt says before he can help himself.

She all but slams the door in his face. He's man enough to admit he probably deserves it.

"She's scary," Raj says.

Tybalt turns to him. "I suppose you heard that."

Raj nods. "You weren't very nice."

"It's obvious you're fascinated by her, but lest you forget, she holds our freedom. I will never be kind to someone who has me in such a cage."

"It's a debt, not -"

"Any debt is a cage," Tybalt says sharply. "Now come." He opens the shadows and all but drags Raj in.

Raj avoids him for the rest of the day, which Tybalt knows he probably deserves. He spends the day in cat form, playing with the youngsters whose parents are out hunting or otherwise less attentive than many of their peers. It's fun, easy, and it gives Tybalt the deepest sense of satisfaction possible when one of the ones he's teaching successfully pounces on a mouse or gets another kitten by the scruff of their neck.

He falls asleep on one of the mattresses in the main room, napping in the warmth coming through the grate high above the walls. It's a better spot than his room, almost, because after awhile youngsters come to nap around him.

Kings draw power from their Courts. The Divided Courts will never understand this, just as they'll never understand why the Cait Sidhe claim the abandoned places of the mortal world. But after so long in the Snow Kingdoms, the warmth and comfortable neglect of the common areas of his Court are almost more comforting than the nicer areas that are further hidden from non-Cait Sidhe eyes.

When he wakes up, there's a kitten staring at him solemnly. He yawns, showing her his teeth. She meows and bops her head against his.

They go to eat together. Tybalt will hunt later, but for now he watches her tear bits of meat apart, rolling around with all the abandon of the young. He bats her with his paw gently to say goodbye, then walks back to his room.

A long bath - in human form - and his own meal later, he feels considerably refreshed. It's not until he sees the canvas bag Torquill had someone bring back that he remembers Toby.

Or thinks of her again. He's not sure if it's possible for him to really forget her.

There's really nothing he can do, though. He goes to his Court to take petitions, and he manages the mundane aspects of his Kingdom, sending out instructions to push at the borders the King of the Portland area is attempting to claim as his own. It's simple work, not boring but also not particularly exciting. It lets him pretend, for awhile, that with slipping back into his usual habits comes a relenting of the pressure Toby's general existence places on his life.

It's not until he stops leaving his Court, though, that he realizes how used to venturing outside he's become. It's not an indication that he was neglecting his Court; loyalty to him is strong, and even if it weren't, he's strong enough to win it back. But he no longer takes a few hours to track Toby down, or even to explore the wharf. His eyes and ears are around, in the form of all the cats in the city whose loyalty doesn't belong to the Queen. But he doesn't leave.

A week passes before he grows tired of it. "The Court is yours," he tells Raj one night around midnight.

Raj's eyes brighten. "You've stopped being a hermit?"

Tybalt levels the most quelling stare he can on Raj.

Raj, being who he is, doesn't blink. "Everyone's been talking about it. You've never done this before."

He has, once, as a Prince. But Raj doesn't know about Anne. "Yes," he says. "I'm leaving. I will return within the day." He pulls the shadows to him and leaves.

He's tempted to go to Shadowed Hills, though he can't think of a particular reason to do so and he knows Torquill probably wouldn't welcome him. He's also tempted to seek out Toby, but that wouldn't end well, even if she's taken up another case and thus not technically where she told him not to go. Finally, he ends up at a park.

It's abandoned, of course - or, it is once Tybalt approaches and glares at the teenage humans sitting on the swings. He sits down and takes a deep breath, enjoying, in a perverse way, the dirtier air of the mortal world.

"You have got to be kidding me."

Tybalt looks up, resignation hitting him. Of course it's her; of course. "Hello, October. That human guise really doesn't suit you."

"Are you following me?"

"Much though I'm sure you would like to believe you hold that fascination for me, no." Tybalt stands, already reaching for the shadows.

"This is two blocks from my house."

"I wasn't aware you enjoyed spending time in dark parks."

"I'm cutting through it on my way to - wait." She narrows her eyes. "Come with me."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me. Come on."

She reaches forward and grabs his wrist. In his surprise, he loses his grip on the shadows. He could get them again, but he's distracted by the way she's all but dragging him to the far entrance of the park.

"We're married now," Toby says grimly as they walk onto the street.

"What -"

"Don't ask questions." She walks a little more quickly, slipping her hand into the crook of his elbow. It reminds him of their time in the Snow Kingdoms, only when she leans into him, it's a gesture of mutual support and slight dependence rather than changeling subservience.

"I'm afraid I must," he says. "Why are you indulging in this charade?"

"Some of us have to pay rent," she says, and leads them into -

A pawn shop.

So it's a human case. Lovely; this is precisely how Tybalt wanted to spend the rest of his night.

He doesn't voice his sarcasm, though. He doesn't really have time to, since she turns to him and says, "Oh, Harry, I don't mind that we can't afford a nicer ring. I just want to marry you."

The high, breathy voice and wide eyes really don't suit her, he thinks. He takes her hands, though, and kisses them gently. "I am as eager as you," he says. Then he adds, out of a sense of perversity, "Honoria."

Her expression doesn't even flicker. "Please," she says, turning to the old man behind the counter, "do you have any rings?"

Pawn shop owners are low-level loan sharks, and despite this man's age and general jaundice, he looks predatory when he says, "I have plenty of rings, especially for a pretty girl like you. Just this way." He trundles over to the case displaying jewelry. It's presided over by a rickety-looking set of shelves carrying electronic equipment that even Toby would feel comfortable with, since it's roughly two decades out of date. "What do you like, dear?"

Toby doesn't snarl at being called dear. Being on a job is a powerful force for her. "Diamonds." She looks up at Tybalt and flutters her eyelashes. "Diamonds and emeralds as bright as his eyes."

"Try this on," the man suggests, pulling out a ring with an enormous, fake emerald.

She slides it on. "What do you think, honey?" More eyelash-batting, this time with pursed lips, leaning into Tybalt as though she -

He focuses on the ring. "It's lovely." He glances at the man, then back at Toby. "But it looks expensive."

The barest deepening of her smile shows he's playing the right game.

"Three hundred," the man says. "A bargain, really. It's valued at over a thousand."

"Oh, please," Toby says. She leans up and kisses Tybalt, the kind of gentle, clinging kiss they've never exchanged. "Please, Harry, I love it so much."

"I…" He makes a great show of hesitation. "If it was just a little less expensive…but you know my job isn't the most lucrative, darling. I love you, but -"

"Harry."

He is profoundly certain she doesn't normally get such joy from playacting. Then again, she doesn't normally have him to annoy with her efforts.

"I could give it to you for two-fifty," the man offers.

"Oh, very well," he says, sighing. "You'll be the death of me," he adds to Toby, cupping the back of her head and kissing her.

One of them has spent time on the stage, and it's not Toby.

She doesn't push him away, but the look in her eyes when they part spells murder. It's gone when she turns to smile at the man. "Please," she says. He nods and slips it into a small paper bag, then wraps it in a plastic bag.

"Cash only," he says, holding his hand out to Tybalt.

Tybalt pulls a bit of fluff from his pocket, casting an illusion as he does. He hands over five crisp fifty-dollar bills, and gets a smug smile and the hideous ring in return.

There's no sense in pleasantries, except for their cover. "I appreciate it," he says, and takes hold of Toby's hand with his free hand, pulling her out of the store.

They get a block down when Toby says, "My car's just another block from here, in the alley."

"I don't suppose you're going to give me some sort of explanation for your behavior?"

"Maybe I was just doing it to fuck with you."

"You'd never lower yourself so."

"Fine," Toby says. "You're right." She pulls away from Tybalt a little more. "You shouldn't touch it, by the way. It's cursed."

Tybalt blinks. "What?"

"Yeah. So are half the other things in that shop."

That's not what Tybalt was expecting. "I assumed this was a human case."

"It was, until I realized the couple were cheap and went to that pawn shop. Now it's a humans selling cursed objects case." Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Toby shrug. "I just wanted to case the place. I'm breaking in once he closes up and taking all the cursed objects."

"What makes you think that will stop him?"

"The curse is traveling. It has to be in one of the objects that he's not moving much. My guess is that…thing."

"Thing?"

Toby unlocks her car and they climb inside. Tybalt doesn't much like being in a huge metal trap, but he's aware he doesn't have much of a choice, so he sits in the passenger seat.

"You know," Toby says. "With speakers, and a plug for a little music player."

It's not often that Tybalt feels more technologically advanced than a changeling. "I believe they call them stereos."

Toby scowls. "That's not what a stereo looks like."

It surprises a laugh out of him, in spite of the general gravity of the situation. "Very well."

"It's popular. It should've sold by now. But it's sitting on the shelves." She shrugs. "It's kind of genius, if you think about it. Sell regular objects mixed with cursed ones, so people keep coming back with bad luck."

She's trying to sound blasé, but it's impossible for her to fool Tybalt with it. "You're not very convincing, you know."

"Give me the ring. Convincing about what?"

Tybalt passes it over. "The idea of someone connected with Faerie, leeching off of both us and the humans, fills you with righteous, honorable fury."

She pulls the ring out, keeping her hand wrapped around the plastic bag so she doesn't touch it. "Hickory dickory dock, your curse really sucks, so…stop," she mutters. Her magic fills the air, and she winces, fumbling for the medicine sitting in one of the storage areas in the center of the car.

"Is a ring really worth that? Just burn it." Fire cleanses curses better than anything but iron.

"The ring is why I was hired," Toby says.

"Who in the world -"

Toby shoves the ring under his nose. "Look at it again."

He does. It looks…real. "Ah."

"It's still ugly, but I was hired to get it back after the cheating husband stole it and sold it."

"And I suppose they'll reunite and forgive everything."

"No," Toby says. "Curses have to have something to latch onto. She's still getting rid of him. She just wanted her ring first."

"How touching."

"It's what I was hired to do." Toby says it with a touch of belligerence, as though she thinks Tybalt plans to chastise her. He raises his eyebrows and lets his sardonic silence speak for itself.

After a moment, she sighs. "Okay. So now we wait."

"Your chosen occupation is thrilling. I suppose your liege can't keep you."

"Stop pretending you don't know me well enough to know why I do this," Toby snaps.

She looks horrified the moment she says it, but Tybalt just feels a kind of strange regret as the reality of their situation settles in. Of course that's her opinion; what else would it be? The truth is that he understands her better than he wants to and not nearly as well as she thinks she does.

"I apologize," he says finally. "Do you plan to just burn the shop down, then?"

"That asshole would deserve it. But no." She sighs. "I'm just going to find the origin of the curse and kill it. Light it on fire. Whatever."

"And you plan to do that, how?"

She taps her nose. "Well. And you."

Tybalt blinks. "You didn't know I was going to be here."

"I was going to improvise."

There's something there that he isn't understanding. Improvisation is certainly something Toby's good at, but she rarely depends upon it for something that doesn't involve insurmountable odds. But he doesn't have time to tease out the logic, or illogic, of her actions, because she's staring at him and waiting for a reaction.

"Of course," he says. "Well, I'm happy to help you with this…problem." And wonder how, exactly, he fell into helping her with a case, less than two weeks after being freed of her company.

"Wonderful," she says. "Great. So - now we wait an hour."

"Of course," Tybalt says. An hour in a metal death trap, with her smell surrounding him. She's on high alert, as well she probably should be, but it doesn't make being around her any easier. He itches to either touch her or put himself farther away from her.

So he does the only thing that makes this bearable: he talks. "I'm surprised your liege doesn't have you running off on his errands."

"Sylvester knows I have my own life."

"So he only calls you for things he doesn't want to throw pureblood knights away on?"

"He calls me for things that need doing," Toby says, low and fierce.

He has an impulse to needle her, to point out that Torquill has plenty of knights who could accomplish the difficult and dangerous things he sets her on. He doesn't know that Toby has realized she's one of Faerie's few heroes yet, and it would amuse him to be the impetus for her realizing it. But even he can realize how disastrous that would be, so instead he says, "There's a gas station across the street."

"Wonderful."

"I could get you coffee," Tybalt clarifies.

Toby jerks her head over to look at him. Tybalt looks back, as calmly as he can.

"Why," Toby says suspiciously, tone making it a statement rather than a question.

"You're cranky without it." Tybalt raises his eyebrows, daring her to deny it.

"Fine." She pulls out her wallet. "Here," she says, passing money over.

Tybalt returns it disdainfully. "I'm fairly certain I can work something out," he says, and leaves the car.

It's a relief to be out of the car, for more than one reason. The car, on its own, is distasteful to the extreme, and being around Toby makes him turn his attention to self-examination more than he'd really prefer. He shouldn't be here, with Toby, and he knows it; but once again, he has the perverse desire to see this through. He often wonders how she inspires such feeling in him, despite knowing he'll never really find out.

He purchases the coffee with money made of dust motes, then goes back to the car. Toby's tapping an irregular rhythm on the steering wheel, and looks generally uncomfortable when Tybalt hands her the coffee and a bag of creamer and sugar.

"You're learning," she says, dumping some cream and sugar in and taking a sip.

Tybalt has no idea how it doesn't burn her mouth, though it wouldn't surprise him if she was simply incapable of being burned anymore. "I endeavor to make people I have to share small spaces with happy."

"Don't think I don't see the veiled insult."

"I would expect nothing less of you."

"Uh huh." Toby's mouth curls into a slight smile. It's grim, though, and utterly without humor.

"Raj is in awe of you," Tybalt says when he realizes it's going to fall to him to fill the silence.

"Good for him."

Tybalt ignores the sarcasm. "He wants to follow you around and learn from you. I confess myself embarrassed, as one of the reasons for that appears to be that he wants to know how to discomfit me the way you do."

She takes a long pull of coffee. "Why are you telling me this?"

"I'm sorry?"

"I don't care about Raj." She says it with an odd wooden note in her voice. "He's your Prince, and you and I are - there's nothing here. We might not agree on much, but we agree on that."

This is a moment, Tybalt knows, when he could finish things - in both directions. He should say something to the contrary, convince her of her value to him; but instead he finds himself saying, "Of course. But I can scarcely control the whims of a child, Prince or not."

"He's a teenager."

"A child," Tybalt confirms.

"So, what, you tell him stories about all the times I've fucked up? Warn him off me?"

There's something more than vaguely insulting about that, but Tybalt's not going to pretend he doesn't know why Toby's asking that question. "I do warn him," Tybalt says. "But you hold a debt to us and have powerful friends; I hardly think you can blame me for making sure he knows who you are."

"What I am, you mean."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Let's quit pretending you don't hate changelings."

Of course. It always comes back to that for Toby; she identifies so strongly with her fellow changelings that it often blinds her to how ordinary she isn't.

Then again, Tybalt appears to be losing his bias even when it benefits him. He's not sure how to feel about that.

"I will admit, I have a certain level of respect for those whose blood hasn't been tainted," he says finally.

It's a statement that's more or less calculated to enrage her. Her hand tightens on her coffee cup and she looks away.

"You're a dick," she says finally.

"I'm a Cait Sidhe. I don't know what you expect me to say."

He realizes his mistake a little too late; he is Cait Sidhe, but he cares for the changeling members of his Court, a fact which Toby has seen proof of more than any other member of the Divided Courts. But Toby is either too muddled to point out his lie, or too stubborn to even think of it as a lie. She doesn't say anything else.

The rest of the hour passes in distinct discomfort. Finally, though, Toby says, "Okay. Let's go," pulling a lighter and a plastic bottle of lighter fluid out of one of the storage areas of her car and hopping out.

Tybalt follows. He feels odd, as though this is building up to something exceptional; in truth, there's no real reason to think that. Even by a normal person's standards, this is an ordinary case. By Toby's standards, it probably barely registers as risky.

They circle around to the back of the shop and Toby holds up a finger, pulling a set of lock picks out of her pocket. Of course, he thinks, smiling a little. If he doesn't think about the origin of those skills, it's exceptionally amusing to watch her exercise them.

She lets them in, then whispers, "Jack and Jill went up the hill, to fetch a pail of water." The security system turns green.

Tybalt doesn't comment, though he'd like to needle her. They walk out to the front together.

"Okay," Toby says. "Do your thing."

He looks amused. "Aren't you going to try?"

"I figured we'd work in tandem," Toby says, and sets the lighter and lighter fluid on the counter, inhaling deeply.

He has no reason to argue with her further, so he sets himself to sniffing out the magic. It leads him and Toby both to a shelf full of electronics.

"That's as far as I can go," Toby says. "I know it's here, I just don't know what."

"Here," Tybalt says, pointing to an old radio. An old radio; he hasn't seen one like this in sixty years.

"I really thought it was the 'stereo.'" Toby's tone makes it obvious that she still doesn't believe it's a stereo. She pulls the radio down, though, and brings it to the center of the room.

"You're burning it here?"

The smile Toby gives him is a little too…pointed. "Sends a message, don't you think?"

"I suppose," Tybalt says, and watches Toby set fire to the radio.

In the end, it burns fairly well, the scent of burnt wood and the tang of hot metal rising in the room. When it's done, Tybalt says, "I suppose we can leave now?"

"I can't smell any other magic," Toby says. "But…" She traverses the shelves, putting objects in a canvas bag she pulls from her pocket. "Better safe than sorry. You ready?"

Tybalt nods, and they leave.

There's no real reason for him to follow her back to her car, but he does. She stops and looks at him, hand on the car door.

"I'll call you if I need you."

If, not when. "You see confident you know how to do that."

The smile she gives him is humorless. "I know how the Cait Sidhe feel about their debts," she says, and gets in her car.

He doesn't call the shadows until she's driven away.

It need not be obvious how he spent the remainder of the night, he thinks. When he holds Court the next morning and Raj is beside him, though, Raj takes one look at him and says, "You found Sir Daye, didn't you."

"I don't know what makes you think that," Tybalt says smoothly.

"Nothing," Raj says. "Only, everything about your face. And your shoulders. You look sad."

"I look sad." Tybalt infuses as much sarcasm as he can into the words. "When you have my age, Raj, you may understand why moods shift."

"This isn't about you being old," Raj says. "Why is Sir Daye - you could have turned to anyone."

This is a conversation Tybalt never wants to have. Absolutely never. But he forces himself to say, "Sir Daye is a fledgling hero. We owe her a debt, yes; but if we hadn't come to her, then Faerie could well be descending into chaos. It's for everyone's good that she stopped the Snow Kingdoms' madness."

"Then why are we the only ones who are in her debt?"

"You know the answer to that." Raj is young, but he's familiar with the ways of Faerie. Tybalt wishes he knew why, then, Raj is insisting on answers to questions that he should already understand.

"I guess," Raj says, and sighs. They go back to silence, waiting for supplicants.

Tybalt spends the rest of the day wishing, quite futilely, that he could somehow purge his knowledge of and regrettable attachment to the mortal world. His feelings for Toby, such as they are, will eventually fade. But he is, apparently, extremely bad at not getting involved. He can scarcely think of anyone who wouldn't greet knowledge of his various activities with scorn. Anyone who matters, at least; anyone Cait Sidhe.

His Court mostly avoids him, and he goes to bed long before dawn. The next day, he spends with youngsters again, barely bothering to change human. He's sulking and he knows it, but as long as he maintains his grip on his Kingdom, his subjects won't question him. He's made his association with Toby obvious, and some of them don't approve; but it takes far more than disapproval to challenge a strong King.

It's nearly five in the morning, and Tybalt's sense of the day changing in the mortal world they're so closely anchored to is rising, when Elaine enters his room. "Sir Daye is calling for you, Tybalt."

Tybalt narrows his eyes. "Why?"

"She hasn't said." And judging by Elaine's expression, she doesn't just mean that Toby hasn't mentioned it while trying to find Tybalt.

"Maeve's tits," Tybalt says, but he rolls out of bed and goes to the alley the outer parts of his Court is anchored in. He shifts the world, bringing Toby in and making them visible. "It's late."

"I remembered something."

Tybalt studies her. She looks nervous and almost-angry, a combination Tybalt hasn't seen since the beginnings of their most recent association, when she used his bed. "Oh?"

Wait. The thought occurs to him just as Toby says, "You won our bet."

There are only a few cats here, and he isn't sure if they'll approve of this little tableau or not. He has appearances to keep up, though, so he says, "I did. We found the disturbance in a Snow Kingdom court."

Toby sticks her chin out, looking stubborn. "So I'm paying up."

"My dear October, if I wanted to call your bet due, I would."

"Don't play games," Toby says. "That's not how bets work, and you know it. I'm fulfilling my side. So." She waves her hand. "Let's go."

"Your reluctance leaves much to be desired." Tybalt looks at her. "Though it's also obvious you haven't been sleeping."

Toby scowls. "Are you my nursemaid now? Let's go, Tybalt. Dawn will be here soon."

"Ah." Tybalt sighs. "If you insist. Follow me." He turns and leads her down the hallway.

It's tempting to make the journey into the heart of his Court circuitous and uncomfortable, but he's no longer wedded to the need to make her angry. So instead, he makes their walk just a few hundred feet, then stops at his door.

"I could release you from the bet."

"And then I'd catch hell for it forever? No, thanks." She crosses her arms. "Let's go."

He could point out that her reticence makes no sense, considering her apparent love of sharing space and of touching when she does have to share a bed. But instead he silently leads her in, watching as she strips down to her underwear, taking off her bra under her clothes so her t-shirt hangs down to mid-thigh. She climbs into his bed and lies there, stiff and glaring at him. "Well?"

This game he's played has been long, and has had more consequences than he originally anticipated - including the utter collapse of his own ability to make her hate him. In the end, it wasn't nearly as wise a plan as he thought; or, more importantly, as effective.

He finds he can't toy with her anymore. He sighs. "Your stubbornness is not your best trait, you know," he says, and shifts, jumping up on the bed in his cat form.

She blinks at him, obviously surprised. He ducks under her arm and wedges his head in the curve of her neck, going boneless sprawled over and next to her.

He doesn't expect her to touch him, but she does, scratching behind his ears and pulling the covers up to her waist. "Bastard," she says quietly, but he doesn't - can't, really - stop purring. And she continues to hold him, petting him and sharing her warmth, until they've both fallen asleep.

He sleeps peacefully, almost in spite of himself. The few times he wakes, it's to the warm pressure of Toby's body against his. His thoughts, filtered through the relative simplicity of his cat form, are peaceful. It's somehow better than sleeping with the youngsters - well, not better, but a different kind of peace. One he hasn't felt in a long time.

When he wakes up for good, night is only barely falling. Toby's still sleeping, face scrunched up and arm tight around Tybalt.

He stretches, tail lashing. He's not expecting that to be what wakes her. She goes stiff and frowns deeply, opening her eyes.

In for a penny, he thinks, and rolls to the side, changing into his human form. "You're beautiful in repose."

"Shut up," she grouses. "Ugh." She rubs a hand over her face and sits up.

The lines of exhaustion on her face aren't entirely surprising, but they do make something in the pit of Tybalt's stomach twist. "You should sleep more."

The look she gives him is laden with irony. "Uh-huh. Right."

"I'm serious."

"And maybe I will. In my bed, far away from you."

It's on the tip of Tybalt's tongue to acerbically point out that he can enter her house if he wishes. He knows that would most likely end in blows, though, so instead he stretches and says, "We both slept well, little fish. There's no shame in admitting it."

She's silent, and it isn't until he opens his eyes and looks at her that he realizes why. The way her eyes travel over his body, the tenseness of her own body, and the intent in her expression all spells it out for him.

It's stupid to do anything about it. Stupid, and not a little self-destructive; but Tybalt finds himself leaning in anyway.

She shies away. "My teeth -"

"Mine as well," he points out, and kisses her.

She pulls away after a lingering kiss, shaking her head. "I can't," she says, sounding genuinely sad. "If you knew what Sylvester told me - I can't keep doing this, Tybalt."

"Then don't," Tybalt says. "Leave here, and never see me again - at least, not until you want to settle my debt. But right now, you're in my bed. And I see no reason not to close this…association…on a positive note."

It's not remotely persuasive. If someone gave him a similar offer, he'd laugh in their face for being a sentimental fool. But he sees the hesitation on her face, and he shamelessly takes advantage of it, sliding his hand up to curl around her ribcage, leaning in and kissing her neck.

"This is a terrible idea," she says, but she's sighing as the words leave her mouth, relaxing back against the sheets.

Tybalt kisses her in answer, pushing her shirt up until he can touch all the skin he wants. The last time they did this was desperate, almost ugly in its fatalism; he has more time now, time to create a memory that will be bittersweet rather than just bitter.

It helps that she moves so sweetly with him. For all her token protest, she's touching him with the same restrained eagerness he's displaying, touching his back and skimming her hands over his ass, making him strain against his underwear with almost embarrassing alacrity. She kisses a little more roughly as he reaches up to play with her breasts, biting his lip and tangling a hand in his hair. The sheer strength of her body surprises him; she's just a changeling, not even Cait Sidhe, but as much as anything, knowing what she's done, what she can do, makes him all the more eager to touch her.

He pulls back after long minutes of kissing her, looking down at her. She's flushed and still looks a little annoyed, but not sincerely; even as he reaches up and runs a thumb over her brow, her frown softens.

"Tell me what you want," he says quietly.

Confusion enters her expression. "Do I really need to?"

"We both know how I began this," he says. "If we're ending it, I'd like to do it under your direction."

He's not expecting her to flush, deep red all the way down her body. He watches it with fascination. "There's nothing to end," she says, but her voice lacks any kind of conviction.

He responds by pulling her t-shirt off, rubbing his thumbs over her nipples. "I don't think you were listening," he says, hoping the teasing is obvious. "I'm asking what you want of me, October."

Her brow furrows, but she reaches up and pulls him down to kiss again. "The first time," she says when they part.

He's not aware of flinching, but her grip on him tightens. "No, listen to me. You fingering me - oh, come on, stop blushing. That was good. Do it again."

He raises his eyebrows.

Her naturally mulish expression gains severity. "You can tell me what you want after, too. I'm not that selfish."

It would compromise his dignity to admit just being inside her is enough. He nods and lies down next to her, guiding her legs apart with one of his own. Her breath stutters when he kisses the side of her head, trailing his fingers over her hip and towards the apex of her legs, never quite touching.

"If I told you not to tease, would you listen?"

"Not even a little," Tybalt says, and runs his fingers over the folds of her cunt, just barely touching.

She goes tense as a violin string, and he realizes abruptly that she's as aroused as he is, and somehow successfully distracted him from it until now. It makes him lean in and bite her neck, just sharply enough that she gasps in surprise, legs falling open a little further.

As tense and silent as she is, this is nothing like that first time. She doesn't hesitate to move against him, doesn't fight against outward demonstrations of how he's making her feel. When he realizes how open she's letting herself be, he slides his fingers into her and moves with her, kissing her and thrusting his fingers in time with the movement of her hips. He rubs her clit, using the rhythm he knows she loves, mimicking it with the movement of his mouth. He absorbs her moans, her small, surprised sounds, loving all of them and committing them to memory.

There's something almost unbearably sweet about this, made even more obvious by the knowledge that this is a different kind of goodbye than they've shared before. When she comes, he doesn't let off; he's not ready to yet. Instead he replaces his fingers with his mouth, bringing her off again with her taste and smell all around him.

When she finishes, he licks his lips and smiles up at her. "Well?"

"I could kick you out of bed for how smug you look right now," she says.

She doesn't look particularly perturbed, though, so he moves back up and kisses her, curling around her.

"Damn cats," she says. "Lie back."

His own urgency has been banked a little, but it rises again as he lies down and she looks at him speculatively.

"I'm not sure I want to be the subject of this attention," he says.

"Tough," she says. "Why'd you go with me to the pawn shop?"

He raises his eyebrows. "That's the conversation you want to have?"

For a moment she looks like she's going to insist, but then she says, "Not really," and kisses his chest.

He realizes her intent immediately. His first instinct is to protest, but in the end he's too selfish to do anything but lean back and try to hold on when she takes him into her mouth.

She does this with a level of mischief that, thinking about it, he should have known to expect. She all but laughs up at him, fingers of her free hand digging into his thigh as she rubs her tongue over the head of his cock, humming when he makes a choked-off noise that he can't quite fully repress.

He comes just like that, head spinning as he loses control. She sucks him through it, then pulls away, kissing her way back up his body with such a lack of urgency that when she finally reaches his mouth, he's almost completely come back to himself.

He expects her to pull away. It's not, he thinks, unreasonable, considering their past. But she keeps kissing him for long enough that eventually, he forgets about that expectation and just enjoys the feel of her in his arms, the freedom to touch her and revel in her presence.

He's surprised when she lays her head on his chest and falls asleep again. It's abrupt, as though a string has been cut, but he's not going to wake her up; he knows how little sleep she tends to get, and how determined she is to pretend she doesn't need it at all. He rubs her back for awhile, but the effort of keeping consciousness when he's warm and in the presence of someone sleeping so peacefully catches up with him sooner rather than later.

When he wakes up again, he's cold. It's tempting to just not open his eyes. He's well aware of how idiotic that would be, though, so finally he opens them, fully expecting an empty room.

Toby's standing a short ways from his bed, though, wearing her clothes - but only one shoe.

"Good evening, October," he says, infusing the greeting with a question.

She grimaces, obviously knowing exactly what he's asking. "I've been standing here for - I don't know, twenty minutes. A long time."

"That's not like you." He forces malice out of his voice, in spite of the bitter feeling rapidly rising in him. "I'm surprised you haven't left by now."

"I'd probably get lost in the Court," she says. Then she adds, as though it's been torn out of her, "Curse it, Tybalt, I could kill you right now."

"I wouldn't recommend it." He sits up, scrubbing a hand over his hair in spite of himself. He wishes he didn't feel quite so exposed. "What have I done now, if you don't mind my asking?"

He's not expecting her to laugh. She sounds desperate, on edge; that alone makes him tense. Toby desperate is never a good sign. "Have you really not figured it out? Oak and ash, Tybalt, I thought Malvic's line was meant to be smart."

It's extremely rude to insult his heritage, but he's not surprised she's doing it. "Your baiting could use some work," he says. He stands up and, still naked, walks over to her. Using his height to intimidate her is the epitome of unimpressive, and he knows it will make her angrier, but he - once again - feels as though his only recourse is anger. "Is there something you'd like to tell me? Something I've done in my sleep, a phrase I've muttered, perhaps, that warrants this ridiculous anger?"

"You know what it is," she says, eyes narrowed.

"I assure you I don't." He fixes her with a level stare. "Pray enlighten me."

"I don't hate you," she says. "I haven't for - longer than I want to. Oak and ash, I fucked you, after swearing I wouldn't - how many times have I turned you down, exactly?"

"Once you didn't have a choice," he reminds her.

He's not even sure of his own intent; cruelty has never sat well with him. But she takes a quick step back. "I could have killed you," she says. "I should have killed you. That was wrong, and then the fucking case…" She shakes her head. "But I didn't, and I showed up to finish a bet you forgot about. What in Oberon's name does that say about me, Tybalt? What kind of person am I, if I keep coming back?"

He wishes he knew where she was going with this, but she has always been opaque to him, and now is worse than almost any time he can remember. "I don't know," he says finally. "I would suggest self-examination, but I'm well aware that isn't a strength of yours."

"Did you just not hear me?" She stares at him incredulously. "Oberon's teeth, Tybalt, I just admitted I'm in love with you."

He's quite certain she didn't. If she had, his world would already be reeling, rather than be starting the process now.

He's not even aware of taking stumbling steps back until the backs of his knees hit the bed. "Toby."

"I shouldn't," she says. "I realized it - I thought of it as I woke up, and now I can't get away from it. I should have just slit your throat in the beginning, but I didn't, and now…" She shakes her head.

He waits, but more information from her doesn't seem to be forthcoming. "I apologize for not inspiring the correct level of violence."

"You're completely unbearable, did you know that?"

He raises his eyebrows. Part of him is in a rather dramatic panic, but he can't let Toby see that. She won't take advantage of it, but it will make her even more panicked.

And he honestly isn't sure he can even process what she's told him.

"So," he says finally. "You're in love with me. How charming."

It's the wrong response. "I'm leaving," she says, turning to go.

He's struck with a feeling unlike anything he's experienced before then, an intense and furious need that nearly cripples him until she opens his door. Then he's moving more quickly than he ever has, closing the door and grabbing her arm. "Toby," he says again, desperation and confusion blatantly obvious in his voice.

She blinks up at him. "Tybalt -"

"No," he says. "No, Toby, just - no." He kisses her, willing her to understand, knowing with an almost terrifying certainty that if she leaves, their relationship will be truly finished.

And it was a relationship. Of course it was, he thinks as she begins to kiss back. He was an idiot to think it wasn't.

When Toby pulls away, she's wild-eyed. On top of that, he thinks, she looks…

Scared. She looks scared.

"Tell me this isn't your way of letting me down gently," she says, eyes searching his face.

Her face is so very dear to him. He cups her cheek, leaning down to kiss her gently. "It's not," he says. "My love for you has been inconvenient for some time."

He's planning on explaining more. He's not expecting her to shove him back. "You asshole," she says. "Were you ever planning on telling me, or were you just going to let me stew?"

He blinks. "October -"

She launches herself at him and kisses him.

He kisses back, matching her fervor with his own acutely-felt franticness. When she pulls away again, her eyes are wide. She doesn't even look happy, exactly, but she does look alert and eager.

"God," she says. "I wasn't…I didn't think…" She shakes her head. "You're the King of Cats. You're aware of that, right?"

"Extremely." He shrugs, allowing himself the vanity of looking rueful. "I cannot tell you the revelation pleases me. But believe me when I say, it's not going away anytime soon."

"You pick bizarre ways of confessing love."

"I could say the same to you." He raises his eyebrows. "Repeatedly threatening violence isn't known as a particularly popular way to admit nascent feelings."

She half-laughs, rolls her eyes, and kisses him again.

Tybalt winds up backing Toby against the door so he can kiss her more comfortably, hands roaming all over her. She keeps smiling into the kisses, and even as he knows that they'll have to talk about this, work out what kind of relationship they're going to have, he can't really keep himself from enjoying the sheer happiness of her revelation. An hour ago, he would have called it impossible. Now, he has her warm and eager under his hands, with honesty finally between them.

She finally pulls away, still smiling. "You should get dressed," she says. "I'm hungry, and we - we need to talk."

"So you do want to do something about our mutual ardor?"

"You would put it like that. Come on. We need to work stuff out, you know it."

There's something else there, of course; her desire to leave his room, to make it known what they've been doing. He doubts she thinks she's testing him, but of course, she is.

Far be it from him to fall down on such a test. "Of course," he says. "Give me a minute."

He's the one who tangles their fingers together when they leave. He can tell she's surprised, but after just a moment she relaxes. He lets himself smile.

"Will you even have normal food here?" she says as they walk down the hall.

"You have such strange ideas about us," Tybalt says. "We can leave if you like, but we should have something we can make into food here."

"Sure," Toby says. She looks dubious, but that only makes Tybalt smile. Right now, he has nothing but appreciation for everything she is.

It will fade - sooner rather than later, if she gets another job that means she takes idiotic risks. But right now, he doesn't bother trying to tamp down the warm glow in the pit of his stomach.

They have eggs and some meat that might be bacon, which fries easily. Their kitchen is small, and rarely used; most of his Kingdom who can hunt, do, and those who aren't strong enough eat the meat that's brought to them. But Tybalt makes Toby sit while he cooks the eggs, adding hot sauce and jam liberally, and the meat.

"Here you go," he says, setting it down.

She's eyeing him with the kind of wariness people apply to strange cats they want to pet. He looks as nonthreatening as possible, taking a bite of his eggs. "So," she finally says, "how do you want to do this, exactly?"

He thinks half-seriously about pretending he has no idea what she's talking about. In the end, he goes with levity. "I thought we'd get married."

She blinks at him.

He smiles. "That was a joke, October."

"It's not funny," she says. "But - seriously. What should we do, exactly?"

"What do you want to do?"

"Could you give me a real answer?"

"Any relationship we have is a partnership," Tybalt replies. "Including simply discussing one."

"So tell me what you want to do." She stabs her fork at him. "You're avoiding answering the question."

She's not wrong, and unfortunately, he knows it. He sighs. "I love you," he says. The simplicity of it nearly strikes him down, but he forces himself to say, "I'd like to court you. Or…date you, I suppose you'd say."

"Courting isn't the same as dating."

"No," he agrees. "You're more likely to agree to the latter."

She takes a bite of bacon, frowning. "I don't really get it," she admits finally. "I don't get why you want to. It doesn't make sense."

"My loving you doesn't make sense?"

"Doesn't it?" She looks at him, and for the first time he notices that the desperation from earlier isn't entirely gone. "Oak and ash, Tybalt, you've spent years needling me, before and after I - disappeared."

There's only one way he can answer that. "I missed you. Toby, every day, every hour, I thought of you. My people watched for you, we searched for you. As your Duke went mad, I fought not to. You have to understand why."

"I…that's good to know," she says. "But - so, what, we'll go out to eat? Hang out?"

"And share our beds, I'd hope. My bed, anyway," Tybalt says.

"I can hear implied insults, you know. You're not exactly subtle."

"Did I say I was trying to be?"

"Smartass."

Tybalt inclines his head.

"Okay," she says. "We date, or - court, or whatever. We keep sleeping together." Her cheeks turn a bit red at that. "And we just…see how it goes?"

He studies her. He wishes, with a fervent level of thinking he reserves for things as absurd as his love of Toby, that he could read her better. She's implying that he could have years, mortal lifetimes - but not long enough, in the end. Though he's not going to bring that up. "I won't stop you from taking cases."

"You couldn't."

"No. But you seem to think I might try."

She looks down at the table, playing with her fork. "I just…it wouldn't surprise me. Even Cliff -"

"I am not him."

"It wasn't because he was human." She looks up at him, fierce. "Plenty of changeling or Faerie men would do the same."

"I'm not one of them," Tybalt says. "And I know you won't interfere with how I run my Kingdom."

"I wouldn't want to," she says.

"Good. Then we're in agreement."

She blinks. "We are?"

Tybalt nods, letting himself smile. "I look forward to you telling your liege about this development."

She stares at him and then, to his surprise, throws her head back and laughs. "You're joking, right? He knows, Tybalt. He already gave me a lecture and tried to make me invite you to dinner. I don't even usually have dinner with him."

Faerie traditions often diverge from human ones, but parental protectiveness is universal. Tybalt is not looking forward to staring Torquill down over whatever Divided Courts delicacies they'll have their cook make for them.

But Toby's cheeks are red and she's smiling at him, and that alone is worth an awkward dinner. He takes her free hand and kisses her fingers. "I'll endeavor not to embarrass myself, then."

She opens her mouth to reply, but someone says from the doorway, "Uncle - oh. Oh."

Toby yanks her hand away. "Raj," she says, turning around. "Um. Hi."

Raj is looking at Tybalt with narrowed eyes. "I knew it."

Tybalt raises his eyebrows. "Is there a problem?"

For a moment Raj looks like he's going to hiss despite his human form; but then he looks over at Toby and relaxes. "I think there should be," he admits.

"I don't bite," Toby says. "I mean, unless someone's restraining me, or…" She trails off, slowly looking horrified.

Raj looks a little green, but he stands his ground and asks Tybalt, "Does this mean you'll stop being so mopey?"

Toby's horror at herself disappears in an instant. "Mopey, really?"

Tybalt turns his nose up at both of them and eats his eggs.

"Come eat," Toby says. "Tybalt made way too much."

"I don't need mortal food."

"It's good, though," Toby says. "Come on, kid, grab a plate or I'll string you up by your ankles."

Raj looks deeply suspicious, but he gets food and sits down with them. They largely eat in silence, until Toby says, "I should go back. Sylvester's going to want to know - well. A lot of things."

Tybalt picks up their plates and deposits them in the sink. "Would you like me to take you?"

"Do you want to deal with Sylvester?"

It's a good point. "Not particularly," Tybalt admits. "I'll see you soon, then?"

"Expect a dinner invitation," Toby says. "I'm in between cases, so…you could stop by tonight. If you wanted."

"I need to spend some time with my subjects," Tybalt says. "Tomorrow."

"Sure." She glances at Raj, who's watching them with unabashed fascination. Tybalt can't really blame him, considering his history with her.

Raj staring isn't going to stop him from giving her a proper goodbye, though. He pulls her in and kisses her deeply, then opens up a path to an alley near Toby's home. "Tomorrow."

She smiles at him. "Yep," she says, and steps through.

Tybalt waits until he's closed the opening to turn to Raj. "Nephew."

"Uncle," Raj replies with equal aloof dignity.

Tybalt considers ordering him to stay silent, but that wouldn't be fair to either of them. Instead, he says, "Come find me when you're done. We'll do some fighting practice."

Raj beams and tucks into his food with greater fervor. Tybalt shifts forms and leaves, re-familiarizing himself with his halls and greeting the subjects that he sees.

By the time he meets Toby at her apartment the next day, just before sunrise, he feels fulfilled in a way he hasn't for a long time. His subjects are, overall, quietly relieved that his affairs have settled. He feels his connection with his Kingdom, the Shadow Roads, and all the dominion of a King of Cats grow all day. Meeting Toby feels like the conclusion of that, as though he has come to a natural resting state, at the height of his power in a way he hasn't been in a long time.

"October," he says when she opens the door.

"Oh, it's you."

But there's a smile teasing the edge of her lips, and she doesn't protest when he steps in and kisses her, closing the door behind him with an unceremonious kick.

They make love - a phrase Tybalt knows Toby would mock him for using, but which seems to apply nonetheless - and fall asleep together talking about a new case Toby's considering taking. Tybalt wakes up first, about an hour before sunset, and thus gets the pleasure of watching Toby slowly wake up, nose twitching and face scrunching up as she does so.

It's charming and quite pleasant to watch. He kisses her jaw when her eyelids flutter open, saying, "Good evening."

"Hey." She stretches. "Are you coming to dinner tonight?"

"I will need to arrive directly; my Kingdom needs my attention," he says. "I do have some time, though." He kisses her again, on the mouth this time, moving above her.

He ends up availing himself of her shower before returning to his Court. Elaine gives him a knowing look, and he encounters smirks as he walks down the halls; but no one expresses anything like animosity towards Toby, so he doesn't mind.

Not that he thinks that won't come later, when it becomes obvious this isn't just a dalliance. But - much though it pains him to admit it - the truth is that he's been preoccupied with Toby for long enough that his subjects are fairly used to it.

He dresses up for Shadowed Hills. It would be appealingly insolent to dress normally, but he's well aware of how much Torquill's good opinion matters to Toby - and how much Toby's good opinion matters to him.

So he wears a linen suit cut as though it were from his youth. It's refreshing, in a way. He steps onto the Shadowed Roads almost looking forward to the dinner ahead.

Toby meets him outside the entrance to Shadowed Hills. "You look nice," she says, a note of surprise in her voice.

"It seemed reasonable to honor your liege," Tybalt says by way of explanation.

She raises her eyebrows, but nods. "I guess we'd better go in, then."

It's the kind of extraneous statement that means she's nervous. He puts a hand on her shoulder. "Toby. I'm going to behave. I will do you proud, and soothe your liege's worries."

"Who says he's worried?" she says, but she relaxes. He kisses her, then says, "Why don't you open the door."

She walks around the tree, then squares her shoulders and grabs Tybalt's hand. Her palm is a little clammy; he laces their fingers together and lets her lead him in.

Torquill greets them as soon as they're in his knowe. Tybalt isn't surprised, but he suspects Toby is. "Toby," Sylvester says, embracing her. "And Tybalt."

It's a cooler address than he'd really prefer. He bows, saying, "Duke Torquill."

"I'm glad you could come."

That sounds honest enough. Tybalt smiles. "It's my pleasure."

"This way," Torquill says, leading them down the hall.

They go directly to a dining room that's considerably more modest than the knowe's Great Hall, though it's still large, airy, and opulent. Tybalt takes the seat that's indicated for him, across the table from Toby and down from the Duchess and Torquill himself. No one else is at the table; Torquill's daughter and the Selkie have been conveniently left out.

It's intimate, which Tybalt knows is deliberate. He smiles at the Duke; Torquill may be Daoine Sidhe, but a King of Cats can charm almost anyone. "You have a lovely table."

"There's no food on it yet," Torquill replies.

Tybalt raps his knuckles against the wood. "The table itself, however, is lovely."

Torquill looks mildly amused; the Duchess smiles. "I admit, this was a long time coming," she says.

"Hey," Toby says. "I didn't know it was."

The Duchess's smile turns slightly sardonic. "And yet, here we are."

"It wasn't predictable," Toby says.

"Of course not," the Duchess says.

Toby scowls. "It just looked different from how it was in the beginning."

"Naturally."

"At any rate," Torquill says, breaking his wife and Toby's standoff, "we're here now, and you and Tybalt are…you know, Toby, you never said."

"Dating," Toby says at the same time Tybalt says, "Courting."

"I see," Torquill says.

Tybalt can't abide awkward silence, but for once, his tongue feels glued to the roof of his mouth. Luckily, a scarce minute later, their food is brought out. Plates of complex-looking dishes, all undoubtedly laden with sugar and various other Divided Courts vices, are place before them. Tybalt waits until Torquill lifts his fork and then begins eating his salad, conscious of the fact that this is most likely one course of many.

"Tybalt's nephew is as modern as they come," Toby says. Her tone holds more than a hint of desperation. "I've met him a few times - he's great."

"Quentin's getting more and more attached to you," Torquill says. "He could probably do with meeting the future King of Cats."

"And the current one," the Duchess adds.

"That breaks with tradition a bit," Toby says.

"All the more reason to do it," Torquill says.

Tybalt is coming to recognize that strand of tolerant, affectionate amusement as being central to Torquill's relationship with Toby. He loves her like a daughter, a fact Tybalt is fairly certain has escaped Toby's attention. It makes Tybalt redouble his efforts to get Torquill's respect, saying, "I'd be more than happy to introduce Raj. He has a cat's suspicion of outsiders, but we live in modern times; meeting someone of some standing in the Divided Courts would benefit him greatly." He has his own suspicions of the boy's parentage, but if Torquill hasn't told Toby, then Tybalt's certainly not going to bring it up.

"Good," Torquill says.

The conversation turns, for awhile, to happenings in Torquill's knowe. Toby knows a surprising number of knights for one who lives apart from the knowe, and she laughingly explains Etienne's traditionalism to Tybalt as Torquill listens. The topic turns to human cases of Toby's, and then to Tybalt's own day-to-day activities. The Torquills display none of the Divided Courts' usual ignorance about the Cait Sidhe; Torquill in particular is more knowledgeable than Toby. And through all of it, Tybalt gets to watch Toby: happily chatting, eating while stealing guilty glances at Tybalt, smiling at him conspiratorially.

It's the sort of happy, if somewhat awkward, dinner that Tybalt knows won't happen often; the habitual chaos of Toby's life, and thus the lives of those close to her, will handily prevent that. But right now, Tybalt's almost enjoying this dinner. For a few moments, genuinely enjoying it.

When they're finished, Torquill stands. "I'll let you get home," he says. "Sunrise is in just a few hours."

"Thank you, your Grace," Tybalt says, rising.

Torquill raises his eyebrows. He clearly recognizes the gesture of faith for what it is. "Please, call me Sylvester."

"And call me Luna," the Duchess says.

It's a mark of approval that Tybalt was hoping to get the whole night. He bows again, then says, "Thank you, Sylvester. Luna."

"Let's get out of here before you promise them your kingdom," Toby says. She's doing a good job at sounding ornery, but it's obvious that no one really believes it.

"As you wish," Tybalt says. They allow Sylvester to lead them to the entrance of the knowe; Luna retreats after a courteous goodbye.

"I hope I won't need you soon," Sylvester tells Toby. "But you'll hear from me either way."

"Good to know," Toby says. She holds Tybalt's hand again. "Well."

"Goodbye," Sylvester says, nodding at Tybalt.

"Goodbye," Tybalt says.

"Bye," Toby says. They leave the knowe together.

Toby waits until they're outside to turn to Tybalt and say, "We could go home alone, but I really don't want to. That was so awkward I need to scrub it out of my mind somehow."

He's learning to appreciate her direct proposals of sex. "I agree."

"I know we can't stay over every night," Toby says. "We have lives, and they have to stay separate, at least a little. And I'm due at the Luidaeg's tomorrow for donuts and chess anyway. But -"

"I would not object to you spending the night," Tybalt says. "And I can take you to the Luidaeg in the morning."

"And Dunkin Donuts," Toby says. "Okay. Awesome." She looks at Tybalt expectantly.

That level of trust is surprising, and fills him with a warmth he's only just getting used to. He opens the shadows for them and brings her through, reveling in how light she's become. When they step into his Court, he nods at the cats lounging in the main hall.

"Sir Daye will be staying the day," he says. "Do try not to need anything until nightfall."

The smirks don't escape him, but no one objects to him leading Toby to his room.

He explores her body for what feels like hours and lets her do the same. When she's relaxed, Toby laughs in bed. It doesn't kill the mood; it makes him want her more. When he makes her come for the second time, clenching around him as she rears up and kisses him, he closes his eyes and lets himself go, opening to her in a way he never thought he'd be able to.

They lie awake together for a long while after that. Just as Tybalt's drifting off to sleep, Toby says, "Things will probably go to hell again soon."

Tybalt keeps his eyes closed. "Of that, I have no doubt."

"I mean, really to hell. Nothing is calm around me."

"I'm aware." He tightens his arm around her a little. "If you're trying to scare me away, I'm afraid you'll have to try a bit harder than that."

Toby sighs. "I'm serious, though."

"As am I, I promise you."

"Tybalt -"

"Toby. I wouldn't be here if I didn't want you, and I wouldn't want you if I had some strange delusion that you were a woman whom trouble does not follow around. Is that good enough?"

"Fine," she says.

She sounds, from her tone, like she's scowling. Tybalt turns his head and brushes his lips over her temple.

They fall asleep like that, Toby slowly relaxing in his arms. His last thought before he succumbs to sleep is that he hopes they can manage more nights like this - many more, if their luck holds.

He thinks they have a chance.

It has been eight months and three days since Tybalt handed the throne to Raj, and eight months and two days since he followed Toby, May, Quentin, and the sea witch onto the Blood Road in search of the originators of Faerie. They've nearly died several times, and Toby is getting thinner and thinner as the humanity slowly bleeds out of her.

He's not sure what the end will be, but this is hardly the first time this has happened in the six years since they began their relationship. All he can do is hold on and follow her.

They've made camp on the edge of the blood road. The road's rust red dirt gives way to dead grass; they pitch their tents on the border and huddle against the ambiguous menace of the dark beyond the road.

It shouldn't take days to traverse the Blood Road, but they're all trying not to think about that.

They share dried meat and flat crackers. When they've finished eating, Toby says, "One more day."

"You've said that for the last three days," May points out. "I'm starting to think you're trying to trick us."

"It's all we can do," Toby says. She fishes the charm out of her pocket, a disturbing combination of her own magic and the sea witch's. "I've got to keep going. It'll kill me if I don't."

"You asked for my help," the sea witch says.

"I'm not mad," Toby says. "Believe me, I'm not. I think - I think I always knew it'd come to this. I wanted it to be someone else's problem, though."

Tybalt leans into her, just a little. It's all the support he feels free to offer, but he's still glad when she takes it.

"Anyway," she says, "it's not like any of you will leave me alone."

She tries to sound angry, but she fails magnificently. "We're seeing it through," Quentin says. "You can retire after this. Oberon himself will probably make you a crown."

"We don't know what we'll find," Toby says, a little sharply. "This road could lead us to their corpses. Or they could be -"

She doesn't say it, but they all know what she's thinking: mad. They could be mad, as Amandine has been, as Blind Michael was. The parents of Faerie, struck down by their own pride and longevity.

"Look on the bright side," the sea witch says when no one speaks. "If they're dead, they won't stink."

They all laugh at that. As fatalistic as it is, the friction between them has disappeared. They're united behind Toby. Tybalt would be a liar if he said he didn't think they've been moving towards that very unity for a long time.

Toby and Tybalt have their own tent, which they adjourn to once the fire has died down. They'll sleep in shifts, May taking the first since she had the last one last night. Tybalt hopes this will be the last night on the Blood Road; it's a Road that was never meant to hold him. The only one who feels it as strongly as he does is May, who feels the world pushing back against her very existence more and more, the further inwards they travel.

He's grown used to his mind trundling over the minutiae of the day. It's one of the ways he's stayed sane.

The other is lying in the tent when he goes inside. "If we do much more of this, I'll go crazy before the charm has a chance to kill me," she says.

He looks at her. Her hair is nearly white-blonde now, her face entirely inhuman. He can see the bitter regret at that loss written all over her face, in spite of how brave she tries to look.

"You won't," he says. He leans in and kisses her gently, hand finding her hip with the ease of long practice. "We won't let you."

"Comforting," she says. Her mouth curls in a smile, though. "Think this is the end?"

"There has to be one," Tybalt says. "I'd prefer it was with you than without you."

"How romantic."

He kisses her again instead of answering. He doesn't tell her the truth: that six years isn't a hundredth long enough, that none of them are going to let her die. She's too important to them, and Faerie owes her too much, for this to be her last journey.

They trade kisses slowly. They won't do anything else - it would be a bad idea on the Blood Road even if their travel companions wouldn't kill them. But they can kiss and touch, sharing breath and what strength they have left.

Toby reveres the stupidly brave things that humans do, and regards Faerie past with suspicion. But in her actions, Tybalt sees an inspiring mix of both; she is an old human hero slaying dragons and an even older Faerie hero battling a forgotten world of monsters. It makes him desperate to see this through to the end so that he can enjoy her retiring years along with the years of impossible heroism and determined strength.

"You're looking at me weirdly," she says quietly.

"My thoughts are admiring. You wouldn't want to hear them." He kisses her. Here, he's glad for her obtuseness and odd stubbornness; if he hadn't spent so many frustrating years trying to figure her out, he'd have considerably less esteem for her.

"Maybe," she says when they part. "God, I just want to get laid. And stop eating coffee crystals."

She says the second with quite a bit more relish than the first. He laughs softly. "Maybe tomorrow."

"And pigs will fly," she mutters, but she lays her head down on her pillow, body curved into Tybalt's.

Tybalt lies awake as she falls asleep. They might be hurtling towards the edge of a cliff, but at least they haven't yet reached the point where Toby gives up on rest. Of course, he has no doubt that they eventually will. Even the sea witch doesn't know what's coming at the end of this road. No one knows if what they're seeking can be found. Amandine delivered them their only useful clue, the carved bit of wood that became their guiding charm, and then disappeared into her madness again. For all that the Cait Sidhe know the shadows and abandoned human places, this is far beyond his or anyone else's knowledge.

And the Shadowed Roads are beyond him here - not because he's abdicated, but because they simply won't be tied down, this far into the tangled mess of non-worlds Oberon and his children created. He would be quite alone, were he not firmly at Toby's side.

He realizes as he falls asleep, with faint surprise, that he's happy. In a desperate, somewhat morbid way, true; but if he could choose anywhere in the world to be, it would be right here.

If this is an ending, then, it's a happy one. He dreams his surprise, and wakes up unafraid.

"Ready?" Toby says when they wake, sitting up. "Oberon's balls, get me some coffee."

He passes her a packet. "Yes."

She blinks at him. "Huh?"

He snorts. "You're charming in the morning." He opens the flap of the tent as she swallows the coffee grounds.

He's ready to continue.