Dame of Owls (6 page)

             
“Be careful,” she told him. “I trust the queen, but we are all of us fae.”

             
He didn’t know what she meant, but a quick swipe of his tongue over his teeth reminded him of the scope of ‘all of us.’ It was easy to push that to the back of his mind, to lock it firmly away, when everyone around him was feathered at best. The girl leading them had visible claws and downy fur on the back of her hands. Chris was still the most human thing walking.

             
But not by a full margin. Not
completely
, just
mostly.
Just a little bit off, somewhere left of center. It was a feeling that had plagued him all his life, driving him to live footstep-to-footstep, house-to-house, friend-to-friend. Never saying no, but never quite saying yes, either.

             
Did he belong here, then? Could he be like Sid and spend a lifetime – whatever that meant now – shouldering one cause straight back and determined? Could he have a
place
?

             
A bit much to ask of people he’d never met, but he found himself hoping so. Maybe that was what Sid needed from him: proof that he was something other than transient and easily arrested.

             
“I’ll be okay,” he said. “I promise.”

             
“Good. And mind your manners.” Sid pulled him after their escort.

             
The girl pushed open an ornate door and led them all into another sitting room, this one even more ornate than the last, a level of opulence Chris hadn’t even thought possible. But all of the glitter and shine was outclassed by the woman perched on a loveseat in the center of the room. If Chris hadn’t known better he would have pegged her as young, maybe in her early 30s. Straight black hair fell down her back in waves, curling just slightly around branching antlers, and her dark green eyes took in every detail of them in an instant.

             
Juniper and Sid both went down on one knee. After a half-second’s hesitant Chris mimicked them, hoping it wasn’t something reserved for knights.

             
“I didn’t expect to see you, Dame of Pines.” The queen's voice was effortless and melodic.

             
“Urgent news,” said Juniper to the carpet.

             
“So I have heard. I am glad, at least, that no one was harmed. Thank you for bringing the prisoners to me, I know it must have cost you to stay your hand. I am also glad that Dame Obsidian has fulfilled her duty. The Lady of Cats will be delighted at this happy news.”

             
Sid might have grimaced. Chris couldn’t quite wrap his head around the idea of anyone being happy to see him.

             
“Your Majesty,” Juniper began, but the queen interrupted her smoothly.

             
“The prisoners are secure, and the matter will wait. Rise, and let me see all of you.”

             
Chris hoped she wasn’t expecting anything too grand. He was still in his secondhand clothes, and he suspected they all smelled strongly of horse. Sid still managed to look regal, and Juniper ferocious, but he didn’t count on himself stacking up. The way the queen stared him down made him glad he wasn’t supposed to have sex with her after all.

             
“The marks of your house show true,” she said with a pleased smile. “This evening you will be introduced. This evening, my dames, we will have much to discuss. For now, rest.”

---

              It was up to a servant to escort Chris to a guest room. Juniper and Sid probably had their own rooms somewhere in this labyrinth, but he couldn’t help but feel a bit abandoned. He’d been at Sid’s heels for more than awhile now, and knowing she was out of reach made his chest ache oddly. She looked over her shoulder at him for a long moment as she walked away, but he couldn’t guess what she was feeling.

             
His room was markedly less shiny than everything else thus far, which was a profound relief. The bed was still too soft, and there were still too many markers of wealth scattered around haphazardly, but he could cope. He ran his thumb over a silver candlestick and couldn’t help but laugh a little. The specter of poverty had loomed over him most of his life, canned food and pawn shops, and one of these little baubles would feed him for years.

             
Maybe he was supposed to be impressed.

             
Chris focused on collapsing onto the bed without missing the pillows. By the time he woke up there were fine new clothes on the table at the end of the bed and a steaming tub in the next room. He bathed because it was obviously expected of him, and put on clothes because they probably didn’t want him running around naked. The dark blue trousers and black tunic fit him better than anything he’d borrowed from the House of Pines, and he couldn’t miss the silver embroidery at the hems: cats prowling through bare branches.

             
To his relief, it was Sid that came to collect him. Her dress suited her, hugging her curves and accenting the grace of her movements. It was pure white, stark against her curls where they tumbled over her shoulders, and matched the white stones around her neck and glittering at her ears. She was a world away from the woman in jeans and a hoodie, or the soldier with a sword at her side, but walked in all with equal comfort.

             
“The queen has asked me to escort you to the House of Cats.”

             
“Thanks.”

             
“You have that on wrong.”

             
“What?”

             
“Your undershirt, the collar is – Come here.” She pushed past him into the room, pulling the door closed behind her. “Sorry, the clothes aren’t exactly something we think about.”

             
“It’s not a problem.” He pulled off his tunic unselfconsciously, caught himself hoping she’d enjoy it.

             
As she reached up and adjusted his collar, her calloused fingers brushed against his neck. He repressed a shiver, smiled and thanked her when she patted his shoulders and announced him presentable.

             
Friendly.

---

              Sid led him to a large room with walls and ceilings made of glass, furnished with a dozen couches, low tables and cushions, filled with at least twenty men and women dressed even more ornately than Sid and Chris. They were intercepted by a one of the servants, a class Chris was only beginning to recognize because they wore mainly brown.

             
The servant returned with a plump, matronly woman in tow.

             
“Capella,” the servant announced, “Lady of Cats.”

             
Sid curtsied. Chris bowed, and he suspected he bowed badly.

             
“Stop that,” Capella chided, and urged them upright with fluttering hands. "Allies and family don’t bow to me, and we have one of each here!”

             
“Of course,” said Sid, but her smile was clearly strained.

             
Freed from the distraction of bowing, Chris found himself distracted by her furred and pointed ears, which sat high on her head and swiveled quickly towards new sounds. She had pointed teeth and a sheen to her eyes, a striped and swaying tail. Her smile was warm.

             
Chris wondered why Sid didn’t like her.

             
Capella caught him up in an affectionate hug, and under her breastbone he could hear the rumble of her purr. The House of Housecats. Maybe big dreamers would have hoped for something a bit more ferocious, but Chris had seen housecats hunt. Ferocity would not be in short supply. Which might explain why Sid, with feathers in her hair, shifted her weight from foot to uneasy foot.

             
“Christopher, is it?” Capella asked. “An unusual name for our house, but no matter. Too late to change it now!”

             
“Probably,” Chris said.

             
Capella chuckled and patted him on the cheek, then turned the full force of her presence on Sid. “Dame Obsidian! Thank you for your efforts on behalf of our house. We owe you a debt for the return of our wayward son. I hope you didn’t run into too much trouble?”

             
To Chris’s surprise, she shook her head. “Very little. He’s easy to get along with.”

             
It took him a moment to realize that she was probably waiting for the queen’s orders on what to reveal about the Summer Court. Chris couldn’t say he agreed, not when someone’s home had already been invaded in a bid to get at him. Maybe the palace was safe. Maybe everyone
thought
the palace was safe.

             
“Well, you’ve made friends.” Capella took Sid’s hand and squeezed it encouragingly. “Your sister will be delighted. And of course you’re welcome here any time.”

             
“Thank you.”

             
If Capella noticed how stiff Sid was, she let it go. “You should help show Chris around. Be his familiar face.”

             
She was going to say no, Chris could tell, but he shot her a pleading look. This was all strange enough without her.

             
Sid sighed. “All right. I suppose it can’t hurt.”

             
Capella looked truly pleased. She beckoned over a young man lazing nearby. “This is my son Pollux. I’m afraid house business keeps me quite busy, but he knows everyone, and every inch of the palace.”

             
Pollux had a keener eye for Sid than for Chris, or probably the palace. Chris tried to be charitable – could he really blame the guy? – but jealousy tightened his chest.
No reason to deck the guy
, Chris reminded himself. This wasn’t a dive bar, and Sid would hardly thank him for it.

             
Pollux bowed to Chris and offered Sid his arm. She shook her head, and Chris felt uncharitably vindicated.

             
“I’m his escort,” she said, placing her hand in the crook of Chris’s elbow. “I’m beholden to keep track of him.”

             
It brought her closer to him than she’d been since they kissed, and the contact reminded Chris of her lips and the curve of her hips under his hands. He thought very hard about zombie movies.

             
As Pollux lead them through the halls, commenting here and there about some scandal or some bit of history, Chris tried to commit the details of the palace to memory. He tried to absorb the notion that this was his new reality. The people with antlers and fuzzy ears he could handle; the velveteen wallpaper and silver chandeliers were proving themselves a different story.

             
Some five-year-old part of him screamed not to touch anything, to maybe not even breathe too hard. The rest of him, everything that knew what it was like to go hungry, wanted to smash something. Better than drooling over Sid, since the vases weren’t self-aware.

             
They went out a door that lead into an enclosed courtyard roughly the size of a football field. The snow had mostly been swept away to reveal uninspiring dirt, and a wooden building squatted at the far end of the field.

             
“This is one of the places where the knights and guardsmen train,” Pollux explained. “Your quarters are across the way, aren’t they, Dame Obsidian?”

             
“All of the knights have quarters in same place.”

             
Pollux shrugged at Chris, a sort of well-what-can-you-do, and moved on to something about horses. Sid made a face at his back.

             
“Hey,” Chris leaned down to whisper to her. “Would it be against the rules for you to train me a little? How to fight better than throwing a fist and a prayer.”

             
She shook her head. “Not against the rules, no. Everyone has the right to defend themselves. You’d be willing to learn?”

             
“From you? Yeah, I trust you.”

             
“I’m not known for my patience.”

             
“I’m not a slower learner.”

             
“Well, I suppose you could have a trial.”

             
Chris grinned, but schooled his expression when he realized Pollux was glaring at them. That was one way to make friends in his new…family.

---

              Sid was as gentle and patient as she’d promised, about on par with the hard-packed, frozen dirt of the practice yard. Chris stared at the sky and the slow moving clouds for the third time in the past ten minutes. This was how his morning had been going for the last little while: breakfast with Capella and her children, a strained effort to fit in with these people who seemed keen to like him. He wanted to like them too, but spent his days feeling dull until Sid fetched him for his beating.