Stage of Fools

by

Seanan McGuire

When we are born, we cry that we are come

To this great stage of fools...

—William Shakespeare, King Lear

London, England, 1700

January

A new century was upon us, as the mortals reckoned time, and the city was alight with celebration. Wine flowed like water in the halls of the gentry, and beer flowed like piss in the taverns of the poor, and the clever, like myself, knew how to move between them, putting on airs for a glass of something glorious strong, then hopping out a window and stalking a few pints of something gentler to keep the throat from drying out.

The King and Queen of Londinium were hosting a grand ball, the sort of gala that hadn't been seen in a century's time, with nobles coming from all across England to dance under the vaulted ceiling of their hall and rejoice in another hundred years gone. Fools. Time, like, wine, cannot be retrieved once it's been consumed: it can only be pissed away, the good and the bad made indistinguishable from one another by the inevitable march of causality. At least I was pissing my time away in the gutter, where it belonged, and not pretending that it was some grand achievement. Anyone can piss.

Although pissing requires drinking, and my drink had run dry before my current excursion to the alley. I gave myself a shake, wiped my hands against my trousers, and turned, unsteadily, back toward the bar. We had hours yet to go before the dawn would come and drive all good puss-cats back to our beds. Plenty of time to raise another glass to whatever my next batch of companions wanted to toast, and to put the past a little more thoroughly behind me.

Drunk as I was, it was a small thing to put a swagger into my step as I pushed open the bar door and sauntered inside. Several of the revelers gathered there cheered at my reappearance. We were not friends. Most of them were mortal, although a few were not, common fae too rude or too low or too ugly to be invited to the royal revels. The air around them sparkled with the glittering traces of the disguises that made them look human, hiding their true faces. They could have been my dearest friends or my direst enemies, and without looking below those disguises, I would never know.

I appreciated that. This was a night for drinking, whether in celebration or in mourning, and there was no need to complicate it with things like the past. If I had fought these men, or fucked them, it mattered not at all. All that mattered was the drink.

A hand touched my arm as I fought my way through the crowd toward an open seat. It was a light, fluttering touch, like that of a pickpocket seeking a target. I reached around without looking, catching the fingers in my own.

"I'm in a charitable mood tonight, so nothing's getting broken, but I dislike being touched," I said, turning to behold the woman I now held captive.

She was lithe and thin-boned, and stood almost as tall as I did, looking me boldly in the eye. A sheen of glitter tinted the air around her, marking her face and coloration as a lie told to snare the unwary, but her eyes were a clear and startling green that matched my own, filtered as it was through her disguise. Her hair was a shade of red that verged into orange, marking her as being of Irish or Scottish descent. Not unheard of, especially on a night like this one, but as late as it was, and as sweet as her face, I would not have expected to find her in a dockside bar alone.

"I think you may have lost your way, miss," I said, and released her hand.

"Not at all," she replied, and smiled, showing me teeth that were too straight and too white to belong to a mortal. She must not have spent much time around them: I had learnt quickly to make my own dentition a bit less remarkable.

Something about her voice was terribly familiar. I frowned.

"My apologies, but...have we met before?"

"Why, Rand, I never thought my own brother would forget me so soon. How ever shall I survive knowing that I am so easily dismissed from mind and memory?" Colleen's smile took on a biting, brittle edge. "I may never forgive you."

I stared.

* * *

There was a time—back when my name was Rand, Prince of Cats, rather than Tybalt, who must ever and always be a King—when I had two sisters, the apples of my eye and the stars by which I set my charts, trusting them to keep me ever true, depending on them to prevent me from wandering too far off-course. They loved me as much as I loved them, and if someone had asked me then whether I ever intended to be away from them, I would have answered with a firm and unhesitating "no."

Then I had enraged my father by refusing to follow his orders, and he had killed Jill to show me the error of my ways.

Then I had challenged him for his throne, making myself King of Cats for all Londinium, first among the Cait Sidhe of the largest kingdom in Britannia...and my first action had been to banish all the Cait Sidhe from my domain, that they might survive the coming plague. It had worked: there had been casualties among the Divided Courts, but none among the Court of Cats. I could be proud of that. I would have been prouder, if I hadn't been so cursed lonely.

I stood in the crowded bar, with revelers all around me, and stared at the human face of the sister I hadn't seen in more than thirty years, waiting for her to speak again. I wanted to hear her voice. I wanted nothing to do with her at all. I was a kitten again, and she my beloved sister, whose word had once been law, before the world changed.

The world is very fond of contradictions. It casts them before us whenever it can find a way, and sits back and watches to see what we will do.

Colleen smiled at me, eyes shining bright, before she reached out and tapped my arm with one slender hand. I could feel the tips of her claws beneath the illusory surface of her fingers, snagging at my skin, reminding me of what we were.

"Catch me if you can, brother," she said, and turned, and ran.

I ran after her. What else was I to do? She was my sister, and she had issued me a challenge: pride alone would have seen me on her trail, even under better circumstance. But more, she was Cait Sidhe, and had come to Londinium uninvited and unannounced. Cats may go where they like, and the fact of our system of governance does not mean that we would surrender that small and vital freedom, even to each other. Colleen had every right to walk where she walked, and I no right to stop her.

But she did not have the right to walk my lands without sending word of herself to me. A dead rat on my doorstep would have been all propriety required, and would have required no contact between us. Instead, she had lingered in my territory, only to present herself in a tavern filled with mortals. I had to pursue. I risked the loss of my crown if I did anything other.

The street outside the bar was near to deserted, with only a few mortal souls making their way toward the door for a drink, or along the path that would lead them home. There was no sign of my sister. I stopped, sniffing at the air until I found the faintest trace of juniper and thistles. She had gone west. Only a few steps in that direction were required before I saw the light glint off a cat's eyes and knew that I had found her.

She turned when she saw me seeing her, and ran. I pursued.

My own human form was abandoned as soon as I was away from the bar, replaced by the strong legs and thick fur of my feline shape. I aimed myself like an arrow after Colleen, racing along her trail, scaling walls and running over rooftops, until I caught a glimpse of calico fur up ahead. I leapt. I pounced.

Burying my teeth in the scruff of my sister's neck, I bore us both end over end as we tumbled down the slope of a roof and onto the balcony below, dislodging some poor soul's washing in the process. Colleen broke free and yowled, lashing her claws across my nose in a swipe that stung more than it did any real damage. I pounced on her again, and we fell from the balcony to the courtyard below.

It was small, and tight, and well-enclosed. There were no lights in the windows around us. This fight could go on the whole night long, chase and capture, struggle and evade. We had done it before, when we were younger and had no responsibilities to see to. But alas, those days were gone, and a king must behave as a king, even when there is no one present to see.

As Colleen pressed herself against the wall, back arched, tail bushed out to its full and most impressive size, I stood, transforming into my more customary form. I forwent the illusion of humanity; let her see the points of my ears and the slits of my pupils and the stripes upon my arms. She was my sister, after all. Even after so long away from me, she deserved to see my face, and not the mask I showed the world.

"Peace, Colleen," I said. "I am here. What brings you to me?"

She stopped hissing, rose onto her hind legs, and changed as I had done, cat one instant, woman the next. Again, the scent of thistle and juniper rose in the air. I inhaled it greedily, this sweet perfume that I had lived so very long without. She was dressed in the human style, and her skirts fell to cover her legs, all the way down to the dirty ground.

Without an illusion to make her seem mortal, her hair was white, blotched generously with orange and black. Those same calico patterns carried onto her skin, circling one eye, covering the left side of her neck, and she was beautiful almost beyond bearing.

"Peace and well-met, brother," she said. "I know not what to call you."

"They call me ‘Tybalt' now."

"But that name came from a mortal's play, and one of which you were more than passing fond. If you were to rename yourself upon becoming a king, I would have thought you to break ties with your kittenhood a bit more completely."

"Kings make their own rules." I paused a moment to collect myself. "You look well."

"The road suits me."

"So you are still not a Queen?" My father—our father—had been no father at all, either in blood or in deed. He had purchased his children, all of us, from parents who saw the favor of a King to be a worthwhile coin, and had pitted us against each other and against him. Three brothers, to someday challenge to be King. Three sisters, to serve as hostage to their brothers' good behavior.

One of my brothers and two of my sisters were already dead, and the blood of our youngest sister, Jill, was on my hands. Father had killed her when I challenged him and failed. Colleen had left shortly after that, at my command.

She laughed bitterly. "What, and shed the mantle of Princess? A Princess of Cats is power walking. No responsibilities, no rules, no need to bow to any but the monarchs of the lands she passes through. I could not stand the solitude, nor the stillness, of ruling."

"Then I am glad you've had a choice." And glad also, although I would not say it, that she still wore the same name. It suited her so well. It was the name I had called her by, on the edge between sleep and waking, all the long days and nights of my life.

"Indeed."

Silence grew between us, taking root like a weed in fertile soil, spreading leaves and roots until it seemed it would choke the conversation in its infancy. I could have lived with that—silence has been an excellent companion to me—had we spent any time together since my kingship had begun. It had been so long since last I'd seen her. I wanted to know everything. I wanted her to tell me everything, so I could hear each scrap in her own voice, to replay for myself when I was alone again.

"Colleen," I said, finally ripping myself free of the silence, "why are you here?"

"Oh, didn't I tell you?" She smiled, quick and winsome and bitter as hemlock, a poison posey of a look. "I'm to be put to death."

I stared at her, and the silence crashed back in, washing everything else away.

* * *

The Court of Cats had been our playground when we were kittens, chasing each other in and out of the shadows, playing tag on the forgotten relics of a hundred households that had no doubt thought themselves better than the beasts who would one day inherit all that they possessed. All we had to do was be patient. In time, all their grand works would be forgotten, and that which is forgotten comes to us.

Colleen sat on the edge of a bench that had once graced the hall of a mortal emperor, hands clasped and head bowed, so that she looked like a penitent, praying for a mercy she might never know. Her hair fell over her shoulders in a shower of white and black and orange, and it had been so long since I had seen anything so beautiful, or so well-designed to break my heart.

"I took my inspiration from you," she said, to her hands, as if saying it to me might be too painful. "You had always loved the stage, and I have always loved you, and I thought, ‘if Rand loves it, and can no longer have it, someone should keep it safe. Someone should watch over it for him.' I joined a mortal troupe at first, as their faithful ratter. There are no women allowed upon the stage, but that proscription has never extended to the cats that keep their stores secure. The actors came and went often enough that none ever remarked on how long-lived their company cat was. It was...pleasant."

"But something changed." It was a guess, of a sort: she wouldn't have been with me had something not changed.

"I grew tired of watching the stage and never setting foot upon it." She sighed. "It was so simple, Rand. I already wore a disguise to appear human when I walked among them on two legs. Making myself seem a human man was nothing. Nothing at all! A few small changes and they welcomed me as an apprentice, ready to set me on the stage."

I said nothing, not to praise nor to criticize. She had to find a way to walk among them. It's not wise to remain in one form over the other for too long. Too many days a cat and higher thought can slip away, replaced by dreams of rats and sunlight and cream. Those of our number who cannot change their shapes easily—or at all—are still wiser than mortal cats, but still, their thoughts are not as complicated as those of us who walk on two legs. Spend too many days Sidhe, however, and watch the simplicity of a feline life fade into the past, replaced by challenge and concern. We are Cait Sidhe. We are both things at once, and we can put neither aside.

"When I had been with the company for too long, I would leave, supposedly to return to town and an honest trade, and return under another guise. I've been with the same company for thirty years, always as the youngest, always in a man's array."

"What changed?"

Colleen looked up at me, miserable and wan. "A man joined us at Beltaine two years gone. He was handsome and young, and he walked in a film of glitter, like a glass held against the sun."

"Changeling?" I guessed.

She grimaced. "Would that he had been. A changeling would have felt himself entitled to no liberties; would have kept my secret as he kept his own. I could gladly share a company with a changeling."

"Who, then?"

"Prince Santon."

My eyes widened, and I fought the sudden urge to sit down on the floor. "Heydon's heir. The one who died. That Prince Santon." I was King of Londinium's Cait Sidhe, but only of her Cait Sidhe. King Heydon and Queen Lettice had ruled the Divided Courts of Londinium for the past three hundred years. They had two children, Santon and Cyne, born fifty years apart. Santon was known to be a spoiled, unruly fool, often absent from his parents' court, for all that he was one day set to rule. Cyne was more tractable. I had met her a time or two, when I had cause to attend some event or other. I had only seen Santon once, and that from a distance.

But I had heard of his disappearance, and the discovery of his body. All Londinium had heard of that. The loss of a Crown Prince was a blow no kingdom soon forgot, or recovered from.

"Colleen," I said, in a voice that did not sound entirely like my own, "what have you done?"

"He knew me for fae as soon as he saw me," she said. "But he was not the cleverest of his kind. Daoine Sidhe, and yet he knew not how to tease someone's bloodline from the air. I was playing at the stage. It seemed fitting to play at being of Titania's chosen get."

"The Divided Courts pamper their princelings when their parents have no intention of standing aside."

"But they cannot put off having them," said Colleen morosely.

I said nothing. There was nothing to be said. Set against the fertility of humankind, all the fae in all the world might as well be sterile: marriages can last centuries with never a child to show for it, wanted or no. The Cait Sidhe fare better than some, as do the Cu Sidhe: our young, when they come, often arrive in multiples, filling a nursery from a single night's work. We pay for that, oh, how we pay for that. We are not mortal—none could call us mortal—but there are those among the Divided Courts who hate and resent us for the frequency with which we have the company of children. So they call us "beasts," and they shun us as best they can, and they make us the butt of a thousand jokes, a thousand foul japes.

For a monarch to be sure that they will have an heir, they must start trying young, with the potential to have centuries yet to spend upon the throne before boredom or accident comes to claim them. Heydon and Lettice were at the height of their rule, unlikely to step aside any time in the next century. But their children were at their majority yet captive, unable to leave to start households of their own while their parents needed them to accessorize the throne.

Their child would be more accurate, I supposed. Santon was dead, and Cyne would be queen one day, in that fair, far future.

"He caught me for a woman that first week, pulled me behind the costume wagon and told me proudly that he could see the depth of my illusion and knew it hid more than his did, and what did I think I was playing at. When I confessed my sex to him, he laughed and said that he had known more to be ashamed of less. He...demanded to see my face."

Still, I said nothing. We are all marked by our feline natures, one way or another, and for our weaker cousins, those marks are indelible. A calico will always show her splotches, a tabby always show his stripes. Colleen and I were no mere cats, to stalk and slink and reveal ourselves so easily. We could strip all signs of our feline natures away, if we so chose.

As if my thoughts dictated her words, Colleen raised her face to me, and I watched as the patches of orange and black melted away from her skin, as the colors faded from her hair, leaving her a Dover cliffside turned beautiful girl. Her ears were still pointed, the shape of her face still both more and less than mortal, but had someone pointed her out to me and said "she belongs to Titania," I would not have questioned them.

She looked Daoine Sidhe.

"Colleen," I said, in a voice gone pale as mist, through a mouth that tasted of ashes, "what did you do?"

"I told no lies; I only acted a part," she said. "I had been so lonely, and he the first that touched on my own kind to come along in so very, very many years. He called me beautiful. He touched my cheek. How could I have told him no?"

"Easily," I said. "It's but a single word to solve a thousand troubles."

Her smile was a twisted thing. "If only I had your wisdom, brother."

"Was he your lover, then?"

"Aye, and more than that, for the better part of two years."

"You said a changeling would have been better, would have felt entitled to no liberties. Did he—"

"Harm me? Not intentionally. If he had, I would have done what they say I did, and felt no shame in going to the gallows. No one lays a finger on a Princess of Cats." She lifted her head proudly, the color bleeding back into her skin as she said, "When we had been sharing a bed for a year's time, I grew careless. I slept one night without remembering to lock myself away, and when I woke, he was tracing the spots on my skin with the edge of his finger. He said...he said ‘I knew you were too beautiful to be of my kin,' and he kissed me like it changed nothing. He kissed me, Rand. He loved me, Cait Sidhe as I am."

"What changed?"

Colleen grimaced. "He asked me to marry him."

I blinked.

"I told him I couldn't marry him, for what would his parents think? He laughed. He said he didn't care, but that if I did, he would have an answer for me before the next day's dawn. He rode for Londinium that night at sunset, and I would give anything to have stopped him." Colleen looked away. "He never returned. His body was found two days later, or what the night-haunts had left of it. The news found me in a hamlet performing Hamlet, for all the irony the world has to offer. The Hob who carried it told me to run. I ran. Barely swift enough; the King's forces arrived on their black steeds that very night, intending to carry me to trial."

"You can't be sure—"

"They rounded up all the cats they could and drowned them in the village pond," said Colleen, with absolute calm. "So yes, I think I can be sure."

I looked away.

"I didn't kill my lover, Rand. If I had, his body would never have been found. But they're looking for the Cait Sidhe whore who stole their prince away, and if they find me, they will see me dead."

"You shouldn't be in London."

"Where else would I go for protection, if not to my brother the king?" Her smile would have been coquettish, if not for the thin ribbon of despair it struggled and failed to conceal. "I've done nothing wrong, but they'll see me hang for loving who I loved. I have never been a Queen. I have no Kingdom to protect me, no Court of Cats to take my side. I have you, and only you. Will you save me?"

I looked at her, my sole remaining sister, the woman who had once been one of the few fixed points in a life constructed on ever-shifting ground, and I gave the only answer that I could, the only answer that mattered:

"Yes," I said. "Of course I will."

* * *

It had been a long time since I had made my presence known in the knowe of Heydon and Lettice, my opposite numbers, for all that they would never grant me the honor of acknowledging me as such. Too long. I stalked along the receiving hall with my chin held high, as proud as ever a strutting tom walked along a rooftop or village wall, and the guards stationed at every door shifted in their places uncomfortably, unsure of how to deal with me.

Had I been a visiting King of the Divided Courts, they would have greeted me with pageantry and with warnings: do not presume too much, do not reach too boldly, do not challenge those whom we choose to follow, whom Oberon himself once chose to lead. Had I been a Cait Sidhe of no title at all, they would have scruffed me and thrown me from the knowe—or at least, they would have tried, and I would have taken some amusement from the attempt. But here I was, cat and King and ally and intruder, all rolled into one glorious contradiction.

Had not my sister's life been hanging in the balance, I might have found the situation entertaining, or at least diverting. Instead, I glared at them through my lashes, and wished I knew their names, that I might curse them for looking at me so.

Like so many among the Divided Courts, Heydon and Lettice favored decadence whenever possible, as if the more ostentatious the show of wealth, the more virtue it would have to frame. Their walls dripped with metalwork trees, silver and platinum bark filigreed over gold branches, growing rich and ripe with jeweled fruit, ruby apples and tourmaline pears and garnet clusters of goblin fruit that looked ready for the plucking. It was Coblynau work, all of it, and the only sign of the miner-folk that anyone would find in a holding this grand; the Coblynau are an ugly people, and they would only befoul the beauty of their own creations.

The floor was polished Irish marble, no doubt offered as a tribute from the Kings across the water. The fae of Londinium were fond of reminding their Irish cousins of Britannia's ascent, while the fae of Eire were equally fond of replying that human politics had no place in fae halls, and did their cousins want to meet the end of a sound Irish spear? It was all good fun, for those who chose to indulge in it, and the floors of Londinium were made of Irish marble, and the walls of Eire were decorated with British silver. The circle turned and, having found the motion complete, kept turning.

The receiving hall ended at a pair of tall double doors, flanked by two men in the king's livery. I offered them a smile. They did not respond. I allowed my smile to widen, until it displayed all the many teeth to which I am heir. They still did not respond, but looked faintly unsettled, which was good enough for me.

"Tybalt, King of the Court of Fogbound Cats, to see their majesties, King Heydon and Queen Lettice of Londinium, long may they reign by Oberon's grace and in the fair, clean light of Titania's mercy." I never met the woman myself, but from what I had heard, anyone who depended upon the light of Titania's mercy would find themselves in a very dark place indeed.

The doormen exchanged a glance.

"Have you been asked to attend upon our Majesties?" asked one of them uncertainly.

"No," I said. "Not today, not yesterday, and I'm quite sure not tomorrow. It's a sorry lot, to be a King of Cats, but alas. Oberon himself said my rank was equal to theirs, and so it seems I do not need to be invited. I can come and go as I please, for what good that does me. Now, shall you open the door, or shall I take myself through it?"

The doormen exchanged another glance, this one even more uncomfortable than the first. I took pity.

"If it helps at all, your regents are likely to be so busy getting mad at me that they haven't the time or energy left to get mad at you. I would just let me in. That way, you can return more quickly to the important business of whatever it is you do all day."

That appeared to decide them. They reached, each of them, for a door handle, and pushed the doors themselves inward, wordlessly granting me passage. I nodded to them genially, and stepped through into the gilded confection of Heydon and Lettice's throne room.

Their New Year's revel was still at its height, and I stopped for a moment, dizzied by the sheer number of fae before me. It had been years since I had seen so many of my own kind in one place. There were no Cait Sidhe—apart from Colleen, I was the only Cait Sidhe in Londinium—but all other breeds and bloodlines seemed to be in attendance, from floating Folletti to Merrow women dancing on two legs, their bodies sheathed in gowns of shimmering scale. So much of what Faerie was and could be was in this room, and for a moment, I ached at my own isolation from it. This could have been mine, had I chosen to allow it.

Each King and Queen of Cats must shape their own relationship to the crown, must choose to emulate or reject those who came before them. My father...he had tried to become King Under the Hill, as Oberon had been, as so many of our kings and queens of old had been. He had ruled in darkness, but he had ruled there absolute, unquestioned, able and allowed to do whatever he desired. He had seen the Court of Cats inviolate, barely connected to the Divided Courts in anything but name.

When I killed him, I could have chosen any direction for my regency. I could have decided to rebuild all the bridges he had burnt, interposing myself into the dazzling array of color and light displayed here before me. I could have been a social creature. Why, then, had I chosen isolation?

A dancer, whirling by in the arms of his partner, looked at me and sneered in patent disgust. Ah, yes.

I had chosen isolation because all of these people were louts and fools and unworthy of my time. The fact that I was here among them now did not make them any worthier. It simply made me the one sane man in a room full of people who thought that whom your great-grandmother fucked was of more import than the cut of your character. As I refused to descend to their level, I would have to strive, however vainly, to bring them up to mine.

I strode across the room, straight through the field of dancers, causing not a one of them to miss a step, for their motions were predictable and mine were feline, perfectly measured, without missed opportunity for forward motion. I allowed myself to consider that I must seem quite impressive to anyone watching.

Then the dance ended, and I was stepping into the open space before the thrones. Three of the four were occupied, by king and queen and princess. The fourth—what would have been Santon's throne, had he been present, and not food for the night-haunts—was draped in gray gauze, like cobwebs, like his throne was in the process of being forgotten. It wasn't really. Its presence here, rather than in my own halls, was more than proof of that. That which is forgotten belongs to the Court of Cats, and always will.

"Tybalt," said Heydon, sounding weary but not surprised. "I suppose, then, that the Cait Sidhe slut we seek has come to you begging for aid, and that you are here to tell us where to find her."

"Why would I do a thing like that?" I asked, resisting the urge to show my claws at his insult to my sister.

"You have no army, no forces, no standing here apart from what we grant you. Yet you are not a stupid man. I would expect you to choose the feline way, and secure your own comfort over all else."

This time I did allow my claws to show, just the slightest bit. I drew myself up until I stood straight and tall, permitting my stripes to ghost themselves onto my skin, as if drawn in dust and shadow. I looked down my nose at Heydon, and said, in my iciest tone, "The feline way is not to trade our people for false accusations. The woman you seek had nothing to do with the death of your son. You hunt the innocent."

"If she's innocent, why did she run?" demanded Lettice. Her voice was ice and knives, brittle, unforgiving. Poor woman. I would have offered her my condolences, had I not feared that doing so would undermine my ability to care for Colleen.

I did, however, sigh, and say, "It would seem that she ran because you threatened her. She told me your men had drowned all the cats of the town where you failed to find her. Some of them may have been our kin."

"The Law offers no protection to mortals, whether they be human or housecat," said Heydon, waving my objections away like they were nothing. I gave serious thought to hating the man. I had been moving toward hatred for years. Perhaps it was time to finally arrive. "The village had an infestation. My men resolved it."

Yes. Hatred was absolutely the answer. "She ran because she was afraid," I said, as patiently as I could. "I have known her for a very long time—most of my life, in fact—and while she has not recently been of my Court, when she tells me that she had no hand in your son's loss, I believe her. She loved him. You should mourn together, not hurl accusations while apart."

"She is an animal who seduced our son and slit his throat when he refused to take her for his bride," said Lettice. Her voice, if it were possible, was even colder. "We will find her, King of Cats, and we will hold her to task for what she has done. We cannot ban you from our halls, but I will tell you this, and have no shame in it: you are unwelcome. You are unwanted. You have forced us to speak of our loss before our subjects, who came here tonight seeking revelry, not a reminder that the grave hungers for immortal hearts."

"Very poetic," I said flatly. "You forget yourself. You threaten one of my own, and you do so with no proof beyond that it would be easy if a ‘beast' had killed your absent prince. She did not do this. She would not do this. And I will not surrender her to you."

"Then we are at an impasse," said Heydon.

"I will find your son's killer, if only to prove that the Court of Cats is innocent in this regard, and you will apologize to me: mark my words." I turned and stalked into the crowd before they could offer reply, pulling the first shadow I found over myself and vanishing in a swirl of pennyroyal and musk.

That could have gone better. I wasn't entirely sure how, or what I had expected when I went charging in uninvited, but...that could have gone better.

* * *

Colleen was gone when I returned to the Court of Cats. The faint scent of her magic still hung in the air, telling me that I had not imagined her arrival, but of my sister herself, there was no trace. I froze, briefly convinced that Heydon and Lettice had somehow found a way into my holdings and taken her. It was a foolish thought, born of panic: I shook it away. If anyone not of my kind had trespassed here without my consent, I would have known. No matter how far away I was, I would have known.

So no: the Divided Courts had not taken my sister. Which meant, logically, that my sister must have taken herself. But where, and for what reason? She was safe here. She was protected here. She could stay here for centuries, untouched, untouchable. She would be lonely—even I didn't spend all my time in the empty Court, where there were none to grant me company—but for her, I would call the Cait Sidhe back to Londinium; for her, I would become a King in deed as well as in position. So where was she?

I prowled through the empty Court, following the scent of her magic, searching the shadows for signs of disruption. The Shadow Roads root through the local monarchs, using us to anchor them to the world when so many of the secret roads of Faerie have been lost. Had this been a thriving Court, they would have been in a constant state of upheaval, like the water in a moving stream, and I would never have been able to follow her. But the shadows here only moved when I used them. Any disturbance that wasn't mine had to be hers.

A patch of shadow on the wall of an old, abandoned church that had fallen to me only recently still trembled with the echoes of her passing. I stepped into it, and the light of the world guttered out, replaced by darkness.

When I was young, my sisters despaired of ever teaching me how to run the shadows without endangering myself. I was forever running out of air, or emerging cold and disoriented somewhere in mortal London, where I could easily have been spotted and endangered the existence of my kin and kind. I sometimes think that my early incompetence was the reason our father tolerated me for as long as he did without forcing me into a challenge for the throne: he never believed that I could master this most essential part of my role as King.

Necessity will do what necessity must. After decades anchoring the shadows, bending them to my own ends, I finally understood them with the innate, unexplainable connection my sisters had struggled so long to beat into me. How else could I have followed the thin line of my sister's passing through the dark and the cold, until finally I emerged into the warmth of a mortal boarding house?

The walls were plain, white plaster and exposed beam and nothing of any value. But there was a fire in the hearth and a solid-looking door closed against the rest of the building, creating a small, safe space for bed and chair and wooden table. The only window was small, and firmly latched.

Colleen was kneeling next to the bed. She did not look around at my arrival, but kept her attention on the pallet, where she was smoothing out the blankets with careful hands.

"I wondered whether you would find me," she said, voice hushed. "It seemed likely. Still, you were never the best at running the shadows. I thought I might have a little more time."

"Why did you leave?" I asked.

"Mortals are so intent on being paid for their time. I suppose I would be, too, if my time were as limited as theirs. They must value it highly, for they are ever on the verge of running out." She stroked the blanket one more time before turning to face me. "I only had so much coin. I needed to return, before the woman I had paid decided she was free to go."

I said nothing. I could say nothing. My voice was a rock in the bottom of my throat, heavy and immovable, allowing nothing either in or out.

When Colleen moved, she had unblocked my view of the bed. The baby sleeping there, blanket drawn up to its shoulders, eyes peacefully closed, looked to be only a few months old. It was a girl. The black and orange spots below her eye told me that with utter clarity. Her hair was white as cream, tipped black at the very ends, and she was beautiful. Sweet Oberon, she was beautiful.

"Colleen," I said, in a small voice, "what have you done now?"

"If I have to explain this to you, brother, you've been alone for too long, and I must insist you take a consort of some kind," she said. There was a flicker of amusement in her voice, near-buried beneath the weariness. "It is a child. They're gotten through very specific activities which I have no desire to discuss with you."

"But...the Prince..."

"I was near done with my growing, and ready for the harvest, when he rode away." Colleen looked back at her daughter, face soft. "He never met her. If he had, he might have listened when I bid him not to go."

"What is her name?"

"Cailin." Colleen's expression hardened. "They will not take me from her, Rand. They will not leave my child an orphan, and all because my fool of a lover got himself murdered while on the road back to me."

"Cailin." The kit's name was sweet as sugar on my tongue. I swallowed it down before frowning and asking, "How much of the feline does she have in her? Her father was Daoine Sidhe. What difference has that made?"

"She hasn't transformed yet, if that's what you're asking, and she lacks a Princess's power, thank Maeve; that particular trial will not be laid at your niece's feet." Colleen glanced at me again, through the veil of her hair, and said, "You know we share blood, Rand. Of all my brothers, you're the one who has the most claim to me."

"Did you find our mother?" Her words offered me nothing new, only confirmed what I had long suspected. Our father had scoured Britannia for his children, purchasing us from Courts where the King or Queen already had an heir, where their subjects were willing to sacrifice their children in the hopes that those children might one day hold some scrap of power.

To be a Prince or Princess of Cats, to someday have a hope of being King or Queen, is to possess an innate magic that can neither be bought nor bred for: it must be owned, absolute, down to the very bones. Our mother must have been a miraculous woman, to have borne two with the kind of power Colleen and I possessed. So many, like our adoptive father, could have a hundred kits, and never a Prince nor Princess among them.

Colleen shook her head. "She's gone, Rand, gone to the night-haunts and the grave long since. I think that was why Father was able to take us as his own. The one who would have fought to keep us safe at home was already dead. But I found her brother, and he told me that her name was Io, and that she was kind, when she was alive."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because you have always been my brother, and I have always, always known that you would fight for me if the circumstance demanded. Now I am telling you that blood agrees with the bonds of childhood. You are my brother. You are my kin and kind. This is your niece, the latest and possibly last of your blood relatives, and she needs you. We need you. Protect us, Rand. Do your duty."

I raised my eyebrows. "Have I given any indication, any indication at all, that I intended to do otherwise? I have gone to the halls of the Divided Court for you. I have humbled myself before the thrones of those who think themselves my betters, and I have done it for the sake of saving you. There was no need to produce a baby. I was already yours to command."

"Thankfully, the production of the baby involved no effort on your part, brother," said Colleen, smoothing the blanket over Cailin one last time before she stood and turned to fully face me. "She's Santon's child. Of that, there can be no question. Even if she didn't have her father's eyes, there's been no other for me these last ten years."

"Did he know? When he rode to speak with his parents?"

Colleen nodded. "He knew almost as soon as I did. That was when he began pressing the issue of marriage. He said his family had access to a hope chest, that if I was worried about our child being neither fish nor fowl, we could move her toward one or the other. He said he would love me all my days, and that the difference in our bloodlines mattered less to him than the fact that I was a princess of my kind, and had gone willingly to his arms before knowing that he was a prince of his."

I frowned. "So he told his family that you were near delivering your child."

"I must assume so. Why?"

I thought of a throne wreathed in cobwebs, a king who refused to speak his son's name, and a sister who sat silently by, always dismissed, never expected to take her family's title. I thought of a revel packed with bodies, but none of them beasts. None of them our kind.

The Law forbids killing. The Law does not forbid vengeance. I would have expected the nature of Prince Santon's death to be trumpeted from one end of the land to the next, as his parents pursued his killers. Instead, there had been silence, and a quiet mission sent to the middle of nowhere to collect a Cait Sidhe Princess without attracting attention. And his family had a hope chest.

"Return to the Court," I said softly. "Find a place to lay your head, and where your daughter can sleep peacefully, untroubled by those who would do you harm. Do not stir from our borders again, not for anyone but me. Do you understand?"

"Rand, what—"

"My name is Tybalt," I said sharply. "I am your brother and I love you, but I am also your King while you are here in Londinium, and your King has given you an order. Do you understand?"

Colleen paused, looking at me searchingly before she said, "I do. Any other orders, my liege?"

I stepped forward until we were almost nose to nose before leaning down and kissing her forehead. "Yes," I said, stepping away again. "Keep her safe. Keep yourself safe. Be in the Court when I return. Can you do those things?"

"I can try." She gathered up the babe as I watched, swaddling her tight in a stolen sheet from the boarding house bed. Then she stepped into the shadows and was gone, vanishing as completely as if she had never been there.

I turned, selecting my own patch of shadows, and stepped through, leaving the locked room as an empty mystery for the landlords to resolve.

* * *

The private halls of King Heydon and Queen Lettice were empty, their occupants no doubt still sitting watch over the revels in their ballroom. That was no trouble for me. Cats walk where they will, and we often thrive in solitude. I prowled through their quarters until I found the doors that would lead me to the quarters of their children.

Santon's was locked, presumably to allow his family the time they needed to mourn without being tempted to walk in what had been his chambers, to smell his magic lingering in the air. The noses of the Divided Court were not so developed, on the whole, as those of the Court of Cats; perhaps they would get no clear picture of their lost loved one if they walked there, and so closed off the room out of loss and anger, as much as from grief. It mattered little to me. The room was sealed. Colleen would be able to move through it and harvest whatever small treasures she desired to have for sharing later with her daughter.

Cailin deserved to know her father, even if it would only be through her mother's tales and whatever scent lingered on his possessions. I hoped that she would have her mother's nose. It would go easier for her, if she did.

When I found Cyne's rooms I slipped inside, looking silently around. The walls were plain stone barren of anything, even tapestries to cut the evening's chill. The floor was equally bare, and the bed was small and rough-hewn, not befitting a princess in the least. All of it smelled very new, recently replacing something of much more extravagance.

That was near to confirmation. I needed my confirmation to be absolute. I breathed in and dropped down into feline form, sniffing the air. How Colleen would have laughed, to find me playing the hunting dog in the chambers of a Daoine Sidhe princess! Still, needs must, and it was not long before I found what I sought. Content, I stalked out the still-open door and returned to the chambers of the king and queen, where I leapt up onto their bed, curled into a ball, and went to sleep.

There is something to be said for throwing one's enemies off-balance. There was a clatter, as of a door opening, and then a hand was roughly grasping the scruff of my neck, jerking me into the air. I kept my eyes closed, dangling as a dead weight.

"I know you, villain," said Heydon wearily. "What is a King of Cats doing in my private chambers? Is it to be war between yours and mine? My army is greater than yours, lord of none. We'll crush you before battle is even begun."

He let me go. I fell toward the bed, twisting as I did, opening my eyes. When I landed, it was as a seated man, unruffled, and not as a cat at all.

Heydon and Lettice were standing in front of me, the one angry and the other bemused. Behind them, like a rare, pale moth, stood Cyne, the light glinting off the blue-white diamond of her hair. My niece came by her coloring from both sides of the family, it seemed.

"If there is a war to be fought, it was declared by your Court upon mine, and not the other way around," I said calmly. "I considered bringing this to you before your people, and decided that it were kinder, and more diplomatic, to come to you privately."

"You could have asked—"

"For audience? I could not. You would never have granted it, and I would have lowered myself by even asking. Do not shame yourselves, or me, by pretending that I could do anything other than what I've done. I didn't have to grant you this much. I could have gone to Eire, to the High King, and told him that you were attempting to spur the Divided Courts to war against the Court of Cats, and all to protect one of your own." My words were for Heydon, but my eyes were on Cyne, who had gone pale and still. "We can let this die between us yet, if we so desire, and none shall ever need to be the wiser."

"What is he talking about?" asked Lettice.

Heydon said nothing.

I stood smoothly, stalking toward them. "So you didn't even tell your wife? For shame. Or perhaps for mercy, which is a form of shame, in its own quiet way. Milady." I turned to Lettice. "I regret that I must be the bearer of bad news, but your son, Prince Santon, is dead."

Lettice scowled at me. "You rub salt in wounds another has already opened."

"You misunderstand: that was not the bad news. That was simply the scaffold which supports it. Your son, Prince Santon, is dead, because your daughter, the Princess Cyne, could not abide the idea that she would be made third to the throne." I paused to let my words sink in.

"What..." Lettice hesitated, scowl fading into confusion. "What do you mean?"

"He means nothing, Mother," said Cyne, shoving herself forward. "He speaks nonsense. He's a cat. You can't trust them."

"I would that the wounds between our Courts were not so deep, or that I believed them to have any chance of healing," I said sadly. "We are fae, even as you are, and we're as worth trusting, or not, as any other child of our progenitors. Your daughter, milady, knew that your son rode to be rejoined with his lover."

"Who killed him," Lettice snapped.

"She might have, given time; she has always been a temperamental sort," I said. "But as she was so far gone with child as to have lost sight of her own feet, I doubt she did any such thing. Your daughter, on the other hand...your son's blood lingers in the air, and her furnishings are gone. She has replaced everything, as if to conceal a sin, or to make her own small penance for what she's done."

"Don't listen to him," said Cyne.

Heydon said nothing.

That was, I believe, the key which turned the lock of Lettice's suspicions. She took a half-step forward, the motion putting her body between me and her daughter, and jabbed a finger at her husband's chest.

"What did you do?" she hissed.

"I saved our reign," he replied, and his voice was granite and marble: his voice was a confession. No one who heard him speak so could doubt that his son was dead at the hand of his daughter, or that he had chosen to ignore the evidence he had in pursuit of an easier answer.

Easier for him, perhaps. Not easier for me. I was about to say as much when Lettice drew back and slapped her husband full across the face, the sound ringing through the room. Heydon did not flinch, nor try to catch her hand. He had earned this, and more.

Both of them turned to me when I started to applaud.

"Good show," I said. "My compliments to the playwright, who must have slaved years to come up with such a beautiful twist. But alas, I don't care. I need a final act. I need a resolution." I turned my eyes to Cyne, who shied away. "What, fair and fainting maiden, now? Your brother's blood is on your hands. You tried to add my sister's to it. That is an act of war, little princess. That is an act of treachery against a sovereign monarch with whom your kingdom shares not only a border, but the land itself. Stand proud and admit what you've done, for silence changes nothing."

"He got her pregnant," Cyne snapped. The disgust rolled off her in a wave. "My brother, who would be king, lay with a beast and got her with child. There's my brother, who always said he never even wanted the crown, and suddenly he has an heir?" She looked to her mother. "I asked him when he confessed what he had done. I did. I asked him if he would stand aside for my sake, for the family's sake. A mixed-blood babe? A Cait Sidhe in line for our throne? He laughed at me. He said ‘no.' He said he would finally be the son you'd always wanted him to be, for the sake of his child, who would one day rule all Londinium."

"Sweet Oberon," whispered Lettice.

"If you do not mind, I have a proposal," I said.

All three of them turned to look at me. I forced my hands to remain at my sides, forced my stripes to stay hidden. For this to work, it must be perfect—and it had to work. Colleen had no other choice.

"You will tell your people to leave my sister be," I said. "She did your son no harm. If he was prepared to step up to his responsibilities, she did your son great good. He died willing to be a man, and that is something to honor, and to thank her for."

Heydon's lip curled at the thought of owing thanks to a Cait Sidhe. He opened his mouth. I lifted my hand.

"I am not done," I said. "You will tell your people to leave my sister be, and that you are still searching for your son's killer—within the Divided Courts, and not the Court of Cats. In exchange, neither my sister nor I will ever speak a word of who killed your son. There can be no violation of the Law if no one is accused. Let a murderess sit your kingdom's throne one day. It's no concern of mine."

"You dare—" began Cyne.

I sighed deeply. "How is it that you people are unable to recognize when a man is in the middle of his soliloquy, and leave him be? Yes, I dare call you a murderess, even as you dared to call my sister a beast. We are speaking plainly tonight, are we not?"

"If we speak plainly, then you understand why we have a problem," said Lettice. "If your sister's child were to appear, and make a claim to the throne..."

Ah, it pained me to say what I was about to say. Colleen would be furious, and rightly so. But when succession is on the table, what is right is not always what is fair.

"I understand," I said slowly, "that you are in possession of a hope chest."

* * *

Colleen wept. As well she should: I had bargained with the bloodline of her child, and with all she had remaining of her lover, of the man who had made her a mother before leaving her forever. Cailin, on the other hand, slept while her mother pressed her tiny hand against the wood, while she cracked the lid open and let a sliver—only a sliver—of the light out.

When it was done, when it could no longer be taken back, Colleen handed me the hope chest. Cailin's calico pattern was more evident now that all the Daoine Sidhe had been pulled out of her, etched bright and bold upon her skin and in the downy tangles of her hair. Colleen looked at her and laughed, the sound breaking into a sob.

"She still has her father's eyes," she said. "She's still his daughter."

"Blood is malleable," I said. "Family runs deeper than that."

I pressed a kiss to my sister's temple before stepping backward, into the shadows, leaving her with her daughter. If she was still there when I returned, I would no longer be a king without a court. That would be a strange adjustment, and one I was eager to make. First, I had a hope chest to return, and a reminder to deliver. My part in this cruel bargain was fulfilled. If the Divided Courts ever came for my family again...

They would be reminded, and fiercely, that we won the right to rule ourselves in tooth and claw, and that we will never be anyone's pets. I ran, and the shadows rippled around me, and the New Year had finally, utterly, begun.

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