Tybalt and I have a complicated relationship, and it seems to get worse as often as it gets better. He was civil, even friendly, when we were tracking a murderer through Tamed Lightning . . . and he disappeared as soon as we were done. I hadn’t seen him since, despite spending several nights wandering the alleys of San Francisco searching for the Court of Cats.

I tried to tell myself that I just wanted to give him back his jacket. I’ve never been good at believing my own lies; I wanted to see him, nothing more or less than that. It was ironic, in a way, because if somebody had asked six months ago how I’d feel about Tybalt deciding to mind his own business and leave me alone, I would have answered “relieved.” When he actually did it, I was hurt. I wasn’t sure how to deal with that, so I went for the easy option. I got pissed.

He looked at my expression and sighed again. “I take it my apology isn’t accepted?”

“Was there a particular reason you decided you needed to vanish?” I finally got Karen’s seat belt undone and hoisted her out of the car, trying to balance her against my side long enough to let me lock the door. Spike barely jumped clear fast enough to avoid being stepped on.

“I had business to take care of.” Tybalt moved almost too fast for my eyes to follow, suddenly taking the bulk of Karen’s weight. “Let me help you with that.”

I eyed him but didn’t object as I finished locking the door. “What do you want?”

“Do I have to want something?”

“You haven’t spoken to me in more than two months, so yeah, you have to want something.”

“Good to see you haven’t changed,” he said, the ghost of a smile tugging at his lips. He eased Karen fully into his arms, holding her easily. “Where are we going?”

“There’s no ‘we’ here, Tybalt. Karen and I are going to see Lily. You can go wherever it is you go when you’re not bothering me.”

“And here I thought you’d missed me.” His smile remained, growing a bit more solid as he said, “You’re still wearing my jacket.”

“Yeah, well. It was the only thing I wasn’t worried about damaging.” I forced myself to keep looking at him, denying the urge to blush and look away. “What do you want, Tybalt?”

He looked at me, smile fading. “I need your help.”

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.

We made a strange, ragtag little procession as we crossed the courtyard to the Japanese Tea Gardens: me in the lead, Tybalt behind me carrying Karen, and Spike running circles around all three of us. I tried to ignore the throbbing in my hands as we walked up to the gates. Spike traipsed at my heels, occasionally scampering off to scatter the pigeons. The birds were pretty blasé about being chased by an animate cat-shaped rosebush; I guess living in Golden Gate Park has gotten them used to the bizarre. I can understand that. It’s a pretty strange place.

The park sits in the middle of San Francisco, squarely in the private holdings of the Queen who rules Northern California. Despite that, it swears no fealty, serving instead as home to dozens of independent Courts. They have their own hierarchy and etiquette. More traditional nobles have learned—to their dismay—that interfering in the Golden Gate Courts is a good way to get hurt. Lily’s Court is one of the oldest and best known of the independents. She sets the law in the Tea Gardens and that shapes the law of the park all around her. None of the fae living there would intentionally go against her wishes. Since they obey her, she never orders them and, since she never orders, they obey. It’s a circle that’s served the park well for a long time.