“Dory!” Claire sounded a little shrill, like she was afraid we were going to duel it out right there in her kitchen. Which wasn’t likely, even if I’d been in any shape to take on a king of the Light Fey. Because where was the room?
The kitchen wasn’t as bad as my hallway, but there had been some . . . additions. Caedmon was king of what was known on Earth as the Blarestri, one of the three great houses of the Light Fey. It wasn’t their real name, of course—which we mere mortals weren’t good enough to have—just a placeholder meaning “the Blue Fey.” But it was descriptive of their realm, high in the mountain fastnesses of Faerie, with blue skies all around and lush greenery everywhere. Because nature loved Caedmon.
Literally, I thought, as a little vine tried to twine itself in his long, flowing hair.
“There, there,” he said absently, and pulled it out, to wind it around the back of a chair instead.
It had a lot of company.
Claire’s window-box garden, where she grew the herbs she used for cooking, had exploded, for lack of a better term. It was now a window jungle, one leaning not outward, toward what looked like late-afternoon sun, but inward, scrawling across sink and countertops and floor like a toddler’s drawing. And then climbing here, there, and everywhere, just to get a little closer to the glowing fey sitting at the table.
It wasn’t the only one. The bedraggled pot of begonias that Claire had brought inside and placed on top of the fridge had draped the appliance in dark green leaves. They were huge and healthy now, and framing clusters of crimson flowers that brushed the floor on either side. They made the old, dented fridge look like it was wearing a long red wig, one more luxurious than Claire’s currently frazzled locks.
“Stop it,” she muttered, as another mass suddenly plopped over the fridge front, like bangs, making the resemblance that much more startling.
“What’s for dinner?” I asked, because priorities are priorities. And if I had to deal with Caedmon, I was going to need energy.
“Soup,” she said curtly, and then jumped when a spider plant, including pot, suddenly slammed in the screen door from the outside, pulling itself along on its weird little handlike protrusions, earthworming toward its god. “Oh, for—Dory!”
“Got it,” I told her, scooping the crazed thing up. And presenting it to Caedmon, who sighed as it wound its creepy little vine-hands about him, in a fervent embrace.
“At least something loves me,” he said soulfully.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, taking the—thankfully glass—cutting board and wailing on some carrots before they sprouted. Because he was clearly too injured with his paper-cut-like wound to manage it himself, and I wanted to eat already.
“Helping with dinner.”
Claire, looking tired and sweaty, shot him a glance over her shoulder.
He failed to notice, being too busy petting his new admirer. “I always like to be a thoughtful guest.”
“Uh-huh. And why are you guesting, exactly?”
The beautiful green eyes widened. “Why, to see my grandson.”
“And?”
“Oh, how remiss of me.” Caedmon took my hand and kissed it playfully. “And your lovely self, of course.”
I sighed and looked skyward—
And got clobbered by a bushel of apples. Because a tree branch had inched its way in from the hall, pushing aside the old boards of the ceiling until it found a more formidable foe in the brass ship’s lantern in the center. And then dropping half a bushel of fruit during the epic battle between them.
Onto my head.
“Caedmon!” Claire whirled on him, hearing my surprised yelp. And then hurried over, wiping her hands on her apron and reaching for me, because her old profession—before she traded it in for fey princess—was nurse.
“I’m okay,” I told her. I’d managed to dodge most of them.
“By luck! She’s supposed to be recuperating,” she told Caedmon furiously.
“Really?” He looked me over. “Ill?”
“Injured.”
“Ah, I can relate.”
“You are not injured!” Claire snapped, grabbing a box of Band-Aids from a cabinet and slamming them down in front of his paper cut.
Caedmon looked at them sadly. They were SpongeBob, which I suppose he felt was lèse-majesté. He opened the box anyway.
“And can you please stop this?” She gestured around at the leafy carnage.
“It will stop on its own in a bit,” he assured her.
“I’d prefer it to stop now,” she said, as several apples plopped into the soup.
Claire went to scoop them out, while I watched a little tendril on Caedmon’s shoulder wind around the point of his ear. “Why can’t you stop it now?” I asked.
“The same reason I don’t simply heal my wound. Too much power buzzing about.”
“What?”
He grinned, and flexed SpongeBob at me. “I might grow an extra finger.”
I decided to quit while I was ahead, but Claire was braver than me. “And why do you have so much power ‘buzzing about’?”
The perfect lips made a slight moue. “There was a bit of a dustup getting through the portal. Oh, nothing serious,” he assured us. “Although it’s sweet of you to be concerned for me.”
Claire didn’t look concerned; she looked pissed. And sounded it, too. “Dustup? I thought you said everything was fine at home, and that’s why you could afford to leave?”
“Well, yes, it is,” he agreed. “At home. But we weren’t at home—”
“We?”
“Heidar and I.”
And now Claire did look concerned, and with reason. Heidar, her fiancé and Caedmon’s son, had recently gone on a scouting trip into territory controlled by another great fey house, and not one of the nice ones. The Svarestri—aka the Black Fey, due to the color of their armor—were heavily involved with the group currently trying to go Chuck Norris on our asses.
“You were with Heidar?” Claire said sharply.
“Yes—”
“Where is he? Is he all right? You said there was an attack—”
“It was nothing,” Caedmon said, soothingly. “I sent him through one portal, and took another myself, although it was a bit of a ride to get there—”
“Why did you take another?”
Caedmon looked like he was debating something, possibly lying.
“Caedmon!”
“The first disappeared . . . somewhat abruptly. The Svarestri caused a landslide—”
“Landslide?” Claire suddenly sat down.
“Heidar made it through well before,” Caedmon assured her. “I sent him back to one of our staging areas and fought my way clear—”
“And came here. And not to see Aiden, as you said!” Claire accused, talking about her and Heidar’s child, and Caedmon’s current heir.
“I do want to see him,” Caedmon protested.
“That would be a first!”
Caedmon looked put-upon. A little cactus in the middle of the table bristled, as if about to come to his defense. Claire threw a dishrag over it.
“You know we’ve been through this,” Caedmon said. “Our women raise the male children until they are old enough to handle a sword, after which the men in the family take over. To do otherwise would break tradition, and also make him appear—”
“Caedmon!” Claire’s complexion was getting dangerously close to her hair color. “Why. Are. You. Here?”
He sighed prettily. “Oh, very well. And while I was visiting my charming grandson, I was wondering if I might borrow a little something.”
“Borrow?” Claire looked confused, probably wondering what we had that would interest a fey king. “Borrow what?”
“Nothing much, just—ah, there he is!” Caedmon smiled and held out his arms. “My boy!”
I looked up to see a towheaded Aiden, still in his jammies, because when you’re a year old, any time is jammie time. He was looking angelic, all big blue eyes and blond hair like his daddy, and standing in the kitchen doorway next to my own little bundle of terror. Who was Porky-Pigging it in a ratty T-shirt and dragging a battered pink bear, which had already lost most of an ear. I sighed.