Page 74 of The Brightest Fell

Somewhere between Quentin showing up on my doorstep with a message from Sylvester and today—somewhere in all the years and miles between us and that moment—I had found my own way home. He was a large part of what had helped to get me there. Quentin would have to leave eventually, going back to Toronto to finish learning how to be High King of the Westlands. That didn’t matter. He would always have a home in California, with me, because without him, I might not have been able to find my way.

Cagney met me at the top of the stairs. Lacey, her sister, was nowhere to be seen. She creaked when she saw me, the rusty, back-of-throat sound that served her in place of a meow. Both my cats were perfectly ordinary Siamese mixes from the humane society, and they were getting old. Nothing will ever stop that from happening, sadly.

“I know,” I said, in response to her creaking. “Do you know where Quentin is?”

Cagney gave me a disgusted look and twitched her tail before getting up and stalking back toward my bedroom, where all her favorite napping spots were.

Quentin wouldn’t be in there. Quentin never went into my room if he could help it, claiming it was haunted by all the times Tybalt and I had heartlessly had sex while my impressionable young squire was in the house. Since he hadn’t been sprawled in the hallway or on the stairs, I was assuming August had managed to sneak up on him somehow. I kept moving, pausing only when I reached his bedroom door.

It was open a crack. I reached out, barely breathing, and pushed it open the rest of the way.

Despite being a teenager, Quentin had always kept his room so clean and well organized that it was surreal. There was a place for everything, and everything was in its place, down to the corkboards on the walls and the banners advertising a variety of hockey teams that I had never heard of in any other setting. There was a large framed poster for a band called Great Big Sea hanging above the bed.

Quentin, on the other hand, was in the bed, flat on his face on top of the covers, hands clasped behind his back like they were tied. I squinted, and the fairy ointment showed me the glitter of an illusion in the air around him, something he hadn’t cast himself.

Illusions can do more than just confuse. They can imprison, if they’re strong enough. I crossed the room and rolled him onto his back. His eyes rolled wildly, and his mouth moved like he was trying to speak but couldn’t. I smiled wanly.

“Hey, kid,” I said. “Hold tight. I’ll be right back—and by the way, this is going to suck.” This dire pronouncement delivered, I trotted out of the room and down the hall to my own bedroom, where the weapons I wasn’t currently carrying were stored.

Fun fact about being a changeling: the more human someone is, the more easily they can stand the touch of iron, which degrades and destroys magic on contact. There was a time when I could carry an iron knife at my hip with no damage to myself. It had been a gift. I still had it. The box that kept its effects from reaching me was lined with yarrow twigs and silk. I undid the box, moved the shielding away, and wrapped my fingers around the hilt. It fit perfectly. It always had.

Sometimes it’s strange to think about how much I’ve left behind in the process of learning who I want to be. Iron knives aren’t an everyday part of my life anymore. But sometimes we have to go back to move forward. The knife clutched firmly in my hand, I left the room and walked back to where Quentin waited.

His eyes widened when he saw and recognized the knife. Up until then, I think he’d been taking my darker hair and softer features as some sort of illusion that I hadn’t bothered, for whatever reason, to dismiss.

“I’ll explain in a second,” I said. “I’m going to be as careful as I can, but I may still touch you, and I’m sorry. Are you ready?”

He couldn’t really move. He could manage the very faintest of nods. I nodded back before bending forward and beginning, with the utmost care, to run my knife along the places where ropes would have been if he had actually been tied up. The blade dipped once, brushing the side of his left hand. He inhaled sharply through his nose.

“Sorry,” I said, and kept cutting. Blisters were already appearing where the knife had touched, angry red and vicious-looking. I didn’t let that slow me down. I couldn’t unravel a spell any other way right now, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to untie August.

When I “cut” the “gag” away from his mouth he gasped, licked his lips, and asked, “What happened to you?”

“I missed you, too,” I said. “We found August. She’s a little . . . angry right now. She attacked me, and it turns out some people aren’t nearly as polite when it comes to the bloodlines of others.”

“She tried to turn you human?”

“I guess she takes after our mother,” I said. “Can you move? I think I’ve cut away the whole illusion, and I’m not comfortable waving an iron knife over you more than I have to.”

“My knees,” he said apologetically.

“Got it.” I bent to cut the last of the illusion away.

As I did, Quentin pushed himself up onto his hands and asked, “Are you okay?”

“Yes and no.” I glanced back at him. “It hurt like hell. I need fairy ointment to move in the world, and my magic is virtually nonexistent. But I’ll be okay. I’m still fae enough to use a hope chest, so it’s not like this is permanent. And I have August tied to a chair down in the kitchen, so we’re not going to lose her again.”

Quentin blinked slowly. “How did you . . .”

“I hit her with a baseball bat until she stopped moving.”

He blinked again, even more slowly, before laughing helplessly. “Right. Baseball bat. That’s the best way to solve that sort of problem. Hit it with a baseball bat.”

“I’ll have you know I used to solve a lot of problems with a baseball bat. Just because I’m more refined now doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten my roots.” I took a step back, sliding the iron knife into my belt. It couldn’t hurt to have a few extra weapons at my disposal, now that so many of my usual ones had been taken away.

“Where’s Simon?” Quentin sat up fully. A pressure in my chest that I’d only been partially aware of unclenched.

“Downstairs, keeping watch.”