The Unkindest Tide (October Daye #13) - Seanan McGuire Page 0,153
even Dean. Inside the Court, I have . . .
Cal. Who never wanted anything more than they wanted to please me, and who couldn’t seem to understand that they were trying too hard.
I sighed. “But if they left an hour ago, why are you telling me this now? ‘Go, follow them, tell me when they leave’ is a pretty easy job. Why did it take you so long?”
Their satisfaction faded. I would have felt bad about that before I’d been required to take up my duties more devoutly, back when I’d been free to run around the city as I pleased, without anyone telling me to stop. Cal should have been able to get what they wanted. We should have been making mischief together, not held apart by the necessary formalities of my rank.
As October is so fond of reminding me, Faerie has never once, in all its long and varied history, been fair.
“You didn’t say to come straight back,” they said, watching me with suddenly wary eyes. “I watched them go, and then I went down to the Castro to pick some pockets. Then I bought dinner at Orphan Andy’s. They’re open all night and they make the best strawberry milkshakes. Then I checked the dock to be sure they were still gone, and so I could follow the trails of the people who’d come and left again without getting on the boat.”
“Were there many?” I asked, managing to swallow my second question, which would have been less than helpful. “Why didn’t you bring me a milkshake?” is not an inquiry befitting a Prince of Cats.
“Lots of humans after the fog they used to hide themselves wafted away; mostly homeless, a few drunk, two who smelled like law enforcement. A few changelings I figure wandered through the fog but didn’t know what it was there to hide. The Troll who drives the cab, and the thin-blood who spends time with your October.”
A warm feeling suffused my chest when they called her “my October.” She’ll never be to me what she is to my uncle, and I’m glad: I don’t have a thing for self-destructive changeling women four times my age, especially not when they’re engaged to someone who could kick my butt around the Kingdom without breaking a sweat. But she’ll never be to Uncle Tybalt what she is to me. Mentor, teacher . . . knight. I’m her squire as much as Quentin is, even if we can’t make it official. Cait Sidhe aren’t knighted by the Divided Courts. It isn’t done.
But maybe it could have been, for me. If Uncle Tybalt hadn’t fallen quite so in love with her, quite so quickly, we might have been able to make my squiring official before he agreed to give up his throne. She could have been my knight in name as well as deed. I could have been the first of our kind to kneel and pledge myself to the root and the branch, the rose and the thorn. I could have shown those arrogant fools who call the Cait Sidhe honorless beasts that we’ve always been as good as they are.
Guess somebody else is going to have to be the first. I should be happy with what I have—I have so much more than most of my kind can even dream of—but it’s the nature of cats to want more than we can have. If we were content to be content, we’d be little better than dogs, and what’s the use in that?
“The thin-blood’s name is Stacy,” I said, keeping the pleasure from my voice. “Her oldest daughter is chatelaine to the Queen in the Mists, and her middle child is as good as apprenticed to the sea witch. Treat her with respect, or the allies of her children might move against us.”
Cal rolled a shoulder, clearly unconcerned by my vague threats. “I’ve done as you’ve asked, my Prince. Is there anything else?”
This was where I was supposed to praise them for doing a good job. All I could manage was a vague wave of my hand, dismissing them. Cal gave me an amused look, all too aware of my mood, and vanished into the shadows, leaving me alone. Again.
Alone. It’s the lot of Princes to be alone. The lot of Kings is much the same, if not worse, since the whole Court rests on their shoulders. They’re going to make me a King sooner than I ever thought they would. I’m going to be fenced in for