Chapter Text
Quentin Sollys’s night starts very normally, all things considered.
He wakes to his alarm blaring, and follows his nightly ritual of cursing the day those things were invented. He fumbles to turn it off, just barely resisting the urge to hurl it at the wall.
He stares up at his ceiling. The light of the moon filters through his curtains and casts a ray across the textured paint. Popcorn, he recalls. Probably filled with asbestos. A health hazard.
Quentin has no idea if Daoine Sidhe can get lung cancer. Or cancer in general. He doesn’t know how cancer works, actually. Something about bad cell growth?
His alarm goes off again.
~~
Quentin goes into work. Back when he was new and the Seneschal of Shadowed Hills wasn’t so busy, this would have been the effort of a couple of minutes. Now, with the Duchess as she is, Quentin is stuck with a long commute and fast-food chain coffee.
He used to like waking up in the evenings. Used to like brewing his own coffee, and doctoring it with whatever fancy syrups Vighnesha would steal from the grocery store. Used to like drinking it with or without company.
Now, he’s just… tired. Really, really tired.
Traffic isn’t bad, probably due to the late hour. He makes it to Pleasant Hill in good time, and follows the steps to access the knowe. The last Duchess designed them, and though the current Duchess had at one point set up her own path of thorns and roses, the knowe is defaulting more and more to the old keys. This means Quentin has to walk a very specific spiraling path to the center of a very particular hill, on a very particular beat. He has yet to locate the song that the dancelike ritual corresponds to, but he’s spent a not-insignificant amount of time practicing his court dances, so he does just fine.
Etienne is just inside the main entrance, looking very crisp in his new tunic and trousers. They’re a bit too long in the arms and legs, a sure sign he’s on the verge of a growth spurt.
“Sir Quentin!” Etienne greets, a little overloud and overeager. He’s like a puppy most of the time, but growing up in the Duchy has done him little favors in the realm of socializing.
Quentin absently ruffles his hair, earns himself a squawk of despair, and says, “Hey, Etienne. Can you point me to your mom?”
Etienne glares at him through his askew bangs and says, “She’s in the receiving hall. You’ll know what direction to go. They’re being loud.” He says it like it’s the greatest offense, rolling the word distastefully around in his mouth.
Quentin almost laughs, but instead he nods, and sets at a meandering pace down the closest hallway.
Etienne is right; the knowe is loud tonight. The building itself seems to usher him along towards the general sound of mayhem in half the time it would have taken Quentin normally.
“I WANT TO GO HOME.” An earsplitting voice says as Quentin pushes the door to the receiving hall.
“I’m sorry, Lady Daye,” Chelsea says, with a patient and coaxing tone. “But Countess Winterrose finished arranging everything last night. You’re a foster of our halls now—“
“I don’t CARE.” The very overwhelmed ten year old says. “I—“
And then the strangest thing happens. The little scrap of a girl, with a snarl of blonde hair and colorless gray eyes and soft round cheekbones, takes one glance at Quentin and looks upon him like she’s seen salvation.
Quentin pauses and darts a glance down at himself involuntarily. Sure, he’s wearing jeans and a t-shirt instead of the livery he’s technically supposed to be in, but it’s not that weird.
Certainly not weird enough for the girl’s entire body to stutter, and then for her to fling herself at him like a wrecking ball.
“CAREFUL–SHE BITES—“ Chelsea yelps, lurching forward in an unsuccessful attempt at scruffing the kid.
Quentin catches the kid with the practiced ease of an older brother, hoisting her up by the armpits and holding her away from him like a naughty cat.
She doesn’t struggle, just looks at and through him with those pale, luminous eyes. Slowly and deliberately, he blinks. After a moment, she does the same, and Quentin very reasonably relaxes, assured of this completely negotiated truce. And then she turns, quick as a viper, and sinks her teeth into his forearm. Quentin, having wrangled a Cait Sidhe or two in his time, doesn’t even flinch. He should have expected it, honestly.
Her teeth are—sharper than he expected, but she stops as soon as the skin breaks, retreating and licking the smear of blood off her lips. “You’re Daoine Sidhe.” She says, a fact and not a question.
“Yes?” Quentin says, and begins to seriously wonder if he needs to call Vighnesha about a wayward Cait Sidhe changeling. Sure, she looks closer to Daoine than anything, but some Cait Sidhe look that way, and very few Daoine Sidhe instinctively bite people.
Quentin is shaken from his internal debate by the girl speaking, voice hoarse from yelling but surprisingly steady.
“When the Root and Branch were young, when the Rose grew unplucked from the tree; when all our lands were new and green and we danced without care, then we were immortal. Then, we lived forever.”
The girl pauses to take a breath, heedless of everyone’s eyes on her as she drills her own stare into Quentin. “We left those lands for the world where time dwells, dancing, that we might see the passage of the sun and the growing of the world. Here we may die, and here we can fall, and here Countess Evening Winterrose has stopped her dancing.”
The Mad Duchess of Shadowed Hills, Rayseline Torquill, shatters the silence. “Evening is dead?”
~~
The small fosterling goes quiet after that, though when Quentin sets her back on the ground she hovers by his side and refuses to be moved.
“October.” Chelsea says gently, and it takes Quentin a moment to realize she’s speaking to the girl. Chelsea is good with kids, even ones that aren’t as well-behaved as Etienne.
“October?” Duchess Torquill echoes. She’s collapsed on her throne, staring dazedly ahead. It’s better than raging or screaming or crying, so Quentin will take the dazedness gratefully. “Your mother… named you October?”
October ducks behind Quentin, peeking out warily at the Duchess.
“Quentin, go find Jin.” Chelsea orders absently. “You’re still bleeding.”
October silently reaches up and takes ahold of his arm, stubbornly trying to root him in place. Quentin feels… very lost.
“Alright.” Chelsea mutters. “October, can you tell me what happened with Evening?”
“She’s dead.” October says.
Chelsea crouches down to get on eye level with the kid. “But how?”
October says, “They shot her. With iron. Twice. And then they cut her throat. It… burned. I didn’t know iron burned like that.”
Chelsea draws back, copper eyes widening. “Were you there?”
October shakes her head. “It was in her blood.”
Chelsea’s mouth actually drops open at that, and Quentin whips his head down to look at the girl so fast that he swears something cracks.
“You rode the blood?” He croaks. “October—“
“It’s Toby.” The girl says. “My name. It’s Toby. October is too long. And stupid.”
She says this so scathingly that Quentin has to clamp down on a brief bout of hysterical laughter.
He tries to keep his voice very even when he says, “Toby, riding the blood is dangerous. Especially when you’re so young, and–”
“Especially when I’m so human, you mean.” Toby says, jutting her chin up. “I know what I’m doing, Quentin.”
Quentin goes still, and stares down at her. “I never said my–”
“I bit you, didn’t I?” Toby interrupts. “You shouldn’t let people do that.”
“There was no “let” involved.” Quentin lies. He does not feel like explaining that most of the children he’s handled in the past have been Cait Sidhe, who as a race just sometimes need to bite people.
Chelsea asks, very bewildered, “How are you losing an argument to a ten year old?”
“Don’t act like you’re not losing too.” Quentin snaps.
“You’re being too loud.” the Duchess rasps. “It’s all so loud right now.”
It’s then that Quentin realizes how dark it is. The light streaming in through the windows has dimmed to almost nothing, shadows drawing long figures across the floor.
The Duchess’s eyes, gold and lamplike in the eerie light, are distant and confused.
It hasn’t been long enough since the last time, Quentin notes, grimacing.
“Oh, Raysel.” Chelsea murmurs, crossing the room and mounting the stairs to the dais where her liege is. Quentin averts his eyes as Chelsea pulls the Duchess to her and draws a comforting hand through her long red hair. He suddenly feels very awkward and very lonely and very much like he should leave the room.
“August, then September, and now October graces our lands.” The Duchess says, and Toby shrinks against Quentin’s side. She’s small, and strange, and knows too much, but Quentin places a hand on her shoulder anyway, drawing her close for comfort.
The Duchy of Shadowed hills knows its current ruler and mourns its past ruler. Every time the Duchess loses herself the knowe reflects that. It’s why so few children grace the halls, it’s why the staff left are so quiet and fiercely protective. When The Duchess has an emotion, so then does everyone else.
“Where is my sister, daughter of Amandine?” The Duchess asks.
“I don’t know.” Toby whispers. “I’m sorry. I don’t know.”
The light goes out completely, plunging the room into cold, blank darkness. The Duchess’s voice echoes oddly against the walls, making it difficult to tell where she is, where any of them are. “Then what good are you?”
A sliver of light betrays the door to the hall. As quick as he can, Quentin hauls Toby up and escapes out the door before the sobbing starts.
~~
“I really don’t know, Quentin.” Toby says.
“It’s Sir Quentin.” Etienne informs her.
“Etienne, it’s fine.” Quentin says absently.
“No it’s not.” Etienne says.
“He doesn’t care.” Toby snaps.
“Sir Quentin is not the only person in Faerie.” Etienne says lowly, which does make Quentin pause. He’s… not wrong.
“Fine!” Toby says. “I really don’t know where her sister is, Sir Quentin.”
Quentin sighs, and crouches down to get on eye level with her (Etienne makes a dismayed sound). “I believe you, Toby.”
“Oh.” Toby says. “Good.”
“Alright.” Quentin says, gently. “Now, Etienne here is going to help show you around the knowe, okay? You guys can pick out your room, and get you some livery that matches the household. And I’ll go make the death announcements to the Queen’s Court. That sound good?”
“No.” Toby immediately says. “I’m supposed to go with you.”
“What?” Etienne demands.
“What?” Quentin echoes.
“I need to go with you.” Toby rephrases, and then hesitates. “You are going to find who killed Evening, right?”
Quentin hesitates, and Toby pounces on it like a shark on blood. “I rode her blood. You need me.”
“I’m Daoine Sidhe too, you know.” Quentin says. “I could ride her blood just as well.”
“No.” Toby says. “You couldn’t.”
It’s–the way she says it, the calm statement of a knowledgeable adult rather than an overconfident child. It feels like ice creeping down his spine.
She really does have such strange eyes.
“She told me I needed to.” Toby says softly, when he still doesn’t speak. “She took me from my mother’s house and she fed me and she arranged for me to go to this Duchy. I owed her. And she–she told me that something bad would happen, and that I would need to help.”
There’s a stumble in her words, a quick averting of her eyes.
This child is hiding something. Whether it be about Countess Winterrose’s death or the moments leading up to it or perhaps something about Toby’s own circumstances, he doesn’t know. But he does know she’s hiding it.
“Okay.” Quentin says, very slowly, testing the idea out in his mind even as he says it. “Okay, you can come to the Queen’s Court with me. We’ll see from there.”
Toby lights up, straightening quickly from the curled in posture Quentin hadn’t even realized she’d adopted. “Really?”
“Yeah.” Quentin says, over Etienne’s numerous and loud objections. “But–hey, Etienne, let me talk. But, the second it gets dangerous, I’m calling Sir Chelsea or Etienne and they’re coming to pick you up. Deal?”
“Deal!” Toby agrees immediately, and her smile is blinding in its relief.
Ah, root and branch. He really shouldn’t have done that.