is an excuse—any excuse—and you seemed like a great start.
“You’re the one that went out and played the brave knight, Toby; you’re the one that started here and went on to something more. You made the Queen leave us alone, because she couldn’t rise against your home fiefdom without insulting your liege. That offended the hell out of her, and once you weren’t standing between her and us anymore, she stopped backing down.”
That was news to me. “She was going to move against you?”
“She almost did, until the Winterrose stopped her, in your name. Evening never approved of us, but she protected us anyway, and she did it for you. Did Sylvester try that hard to keep your memory alive?” He paused, expression challenging. I looked away. There were no words that could say what I needed to say to him; I wasn’t even willing to try.
There was a long pause, and when he continued, he sounded almost impossibly tired. When did the world get so old? “At first she was doing it for you, but I like to think that maybe, toward the end, she was doing it for herself. That she finally understood why we were here.”
“I didn’t know.”
“No,” he said, “you didn’t want to know. You pigeonholed her the way you’ve pigeonholed everybody else, and you ignored her when she tried to step out of the role you’d given her. You’ve done that for as long as I’ve known you, Toby, and I think I’ve known you longer than just about anyone else in this world.”
“I didn’t think—”
“That’s not much of a surprise.” He stopped and took a deep breath before flashing me a smile that managed to show all of his teeth at once. “But enough about you—let’s talk about me. Did you come here to sleep with me?”
I forced a smile, back on familiar ground. I could ignore the way his words stung until the job was over. “Sorry, Devin. Not this time.”
“Afraid that you can’t walk away from me twice?”
“Maybe.” I relaxed, my smile becoming real. “I really did miss you.”
“And we really did miss you, too,” he said. “I kept the kids looking for you for ten years, you know. We didn’t want to give up.”
“I’m glad of that,” I said. “Sometimes I think the whole world gave up on me while I was gone.”
“I think a lot of the world did, but I was never part of the crowd,” he said, and smiled. There wasn’t any phony sex in that smile; just old friendship and genuine welcome. I’d forgotten how good that could feel. “Most of the folks you knew aren’t here anymore: Jimmy’s dead, Julie’s working for Lily, John and Little Mike are both down south in Angels. As for the new generation, well . . .” He shrugged.
“The new generation needs to be kept on a leash. Starting with that little blonde bimbo-in-training you have doing front duty. I know everyone stands sentry, Devin, but you should teach her some manners before you let her out in public.”
“What, Dare? Did she give you any trouble?” He sounded affronted, but I could tell he was pleased. He wanted his kids to have a certain amount of spirit, as long as they did as they were told.
“Plenty of it, until I told her who I was. Could you have possibly found a kid with a worse attitude problem?”
“No, Toby, you were one of a kind.”
“Hey!”
Devin leaned forward, putting his hands on the desk. “She was worse when she got here. The kid couldn’t say two civil words to anyone, and now, well, she’s just a little mouthy. She’s a handful, but she does her share. They all do.”
“There are always more kids, aren’t there?” I said, looking at the wall behind his desk. He kept a giant bulletin board there, plastered with snapshots of every lost boy or girl that had ever come Home. I was in there somewhere, just another gawky teenager with badly cut hair, a bad attitude, and no common sense to speak of. It was comforting to realize that no matter what happened to me, my picture would always be buried in the collage behind Devin’s desk.
“Yes,” he said, voice softening. “There are always more kids.” How many had he seen die, or vanish, or just fade away? I left Home for Sylvester’s Court, thinking it was better: Devin lost me, but at least he knew where I’d gone. How many of his kids just left and never