his heritage was subtle; there was something in the shadows of his eyes that should have given me a clue, but I was too tired to quite put my finger on it. “Julie talks about you a lot.”
“Now I’m worried,” I said, taking my hand back and glancing toward Lily.
“His mother was a servitor of these lands,” Lily said. She leaned up onto her toes, ruffling Ross’ hair. He took it with good grace, even stooping to make it easier. “In her absence, we act as his home and hearth. He needs aid to see through our more basic illusions, but that isn’t enough to rob him of his place.”
Thin blood is a social stigma in Faerie. It isn’t enough to ban you completely. Some of Faerie’s greatest scholars and magical theoreticians were thin-blooded: it gave them the ability to see us for what we were, but at a distance, and that made them stronger than most people could understand. It said something about Lily that she was willing to take in Ross and Marcia the way she had.
“Fair enough,” I said, sliding my hands into my pockets. Looking back to Julie, I said, “I guess you know what’s up?”
“Lil says you’re having problems with idiots with guns, so Ross and me are here to get you through the big bad park and down to your waiting chariot, which happens to be a San Francisco city taxicab,” she said, hugging Ross’ arm to her chest in a proprietary manner. “It’ll be a cakewalk.”
“Right,” I said and glanced at Lily, who shook her head. This was my choice. She knew that Julie was Cait Sidhe enough to never take threats of physical violence seriously: she thought of herself as the biggest threat on the block, even though her blood was as thin as mine. As for Ross . . . he might mean well, but he was quarter-blooded, which meant his magic would be weak, if it existed at all. She was giving me a quarter-blood who probably couldn’t do anything but scream and hide and a Cait Sidhe changeling who thought she could scare just about anything away by shouting and showing her claws. Why?
Because she thought it would convince me not to go. Shaking my head, I started for the gate. If anything attacked us, we could just panic at it until it went away. “Come on. Let’s get this traveling freak show on the road.”
Lily followed as far as she could. As we passed from her land back into the park proper, she stopped, saying, “October?”
Juliet and Ross were a few feet ahead of me, Julie still holding his arm. I looked back to Lily, silhouetted by the garden gates, and said, “Yeah?”
“Be careful.”
“Aren’t I always?” I asked. Then I turned, not waiting for an answer, and followed my escort out the gate.
It was almost totally dark outside the Tea Gardens, the shadows broken only by randomly spaced streetlights and the sparkle of passing pixies. Figures both fae and human moved through those shadows, taking whatever trails the night held for them. None of Golden Gate Park’s nighttime inhabitants need much in the way of light; all it would do was show them the things they’d rather leave hidden.
Julie led the way once we were clear of Lily’s domain. Her Cait Sidhe heritage gave her night vision that put mine to shame, and even mine was probably worlds better than Ross’. Faerie ointment lets humans see through illusions, but it can’t change the human eye. He was stuck with what his blood could give him. I did my best to keep pace. The throbbing in my shoulder was constant, but not enough to be more than a mild distraction. Lily did her work well.
“It’s a nice night, for December,” I said, squinting into the foggy dark. “I can almost pretend to see my hand in front of my face.”
“I guess,” Julie said. “It’s not raining. That’s something.”
“I like the rain.”
Julie threw me a dirty look, eyes glowing a pale, annoyed green. I smirked at her. Most cats don’t like water, and despite her pretensions of tigerhood, Julie was no different. Yes, tigers have stripes; so do tabbies. If you want to know the difference, try tossing one of each into your swimming pool. Then I would recommend running.
“I don’t,” she said, sullenly.
“I do,” Ross said. Some of the tension slipped out of Julie’s shoulders and she smiled, giving me a “what can you do?” shrug. I grinned back.