An Artificial Night

I hadn’t expected that. I blinked. “What?”


“I need your help.” He looked down at Karen like he was addressing his words to her instead of me. “Five children vanished from the Court of Cats this morning.” His tone was infinitely weary. I stared. “Three were changelings living with their fae parents. One was a quarter-blood living with her changeling mother. The last was pureblooded.” He glanced up at me, and now the weariness was in his face as well as in his voice. “It’s my brother’s son. The only royal Cait Sidhe born in my fiefdom in the last sixty years.”

“They just vanished?” My mouth was suddenly dry. Spike rattled its thorns, almost like it was punctuating the question. Cait Sidhe tend to be even more nocturnal than most fae; their feline natures usually keep them unconscious through the days. “Are you sure?”

“The quarter-blood is the youngest—she’s only six, and she’s still living as a human. Her mother woke to find her missing and notified the Court, thinking we might have taken the girl. That was enough to make us check on the others.”

Oh, oak and ash. Pushing the panic down to keep it out of my voice, I asked, “Why are you coming to me with this, Tybalt?”

“I could say a lot of pretty things that don’t mean anything, but the fact is, you’re the only person I could think of.” He kept looking at me gravely. “You’re good at this sort of thing, October. And more . . . you owe me a debt.”

I blinked. “What?”

“Asking you doesn’t put the Court in a position of owing one of the local nobles.” Another smile—a bitter one—ghosted across his lips. “There’s only so much my subjects will tolerate. It’s my responsibility to get the children back, but I can’t endanger our sovereignty to do it. Please. Do this, and there are no debts between us. Everything is paid.”

Tybalt had helped me hide a very powerful artifact after the woman who owned it died. He’d held me in debt ever since. For him to offer my freedom . . .

“Help me get Karen into the Tea Gardens, and we’ll talk,” I said, raking my hair back automatically and wincing as the gesture pulled on my bandages.

Eyeing my hands, Tybalt asked, “What have you done to yourself now?”

“I touched a window,” I said. “Come on.”

We had barely left the shadows behind the snack bar when I felt a spell settle over us, accompanied by the musk and pennyroyal signature of Tybalt’s magic. I gave him a sidelong look and he smiled, a bit more genuinely this time.

“I thought it best that we not be seen,” he said.

“Fair.” I might have been annoyed at him for using magic on me without permission, but I was too relieved that he’d noticed the need. I was more relieved not to have been the one to cast the don’t-look-here. I was starting to think I’d need all the resources I could tap.