Ashes of Honor

“Keep your nose covered.” He grasped my wrist with his free hand, pulling my hand back up. Most of his face was covered, but I could still see his eyes, bloodshot from the smoke, worried, and so very, very tired. “I told you I’d been hurt.”

“You didn’t tell me you died.”

“I got better.”

I glared at him. It was the only thing I could think of to do.

This wasn’t the first time Tybalt had died—or come close enough that there was practically no difference—and miraculously recovered. Taking the “cats have nine lives” folktale literally was a perk of being a King of Cats. But I didn’t know how many lives he got, or how many he’d used up before he met me. I didn’t know when he was going to run out.

Tybalt sighed, letting go of my wrist and putting his hand against the small of my back instead. “You can shout at me for dying later. For now, we have larger things to worry about. Come.” With that, he pushed, guiding me into the worst of the smoke.

The first time I visited the Court of Cats, it was a confusing maze of mismatched hallways, rooms that should never have been connected, and completely unrelated architectures. None of that had changed. Still, it was somehow comfortable now; I was in a place where I knew no one would hurt me, not without going through Tybalt first.

Although at the moment, given how recently he had returned from the dead, I wasn’t sure I’d let Tybalt stand between me and danger. The reverse seemed to be a lot more likely.

As we walked, I saw scorch marks and signs of burning on the walls and ceilings, but no actual fire. The Cait Sidhe had managed to stop the Court from burning down entirely. It made me feel a little better to realize Tybalt had stayed with his people long enough to put out the fire before coming to fetch me.

We didn’t see anyone as we walked. The lingering smoke had driven them to someplace safer, even if fire was no longer a danger.

Tybalt stopped in front of a closed oak door, taking his hand away from my hip in order to knock three times. There was a long pause before someone on the other side of the door echoed his knock. He knocked again, twice this time, and the door was pulled open by a tiger-striped changeling with hair dyed in streaks of charcoal gray and cherry red. No; not entirely dyed. The red was artificial, but the gray was all ash.

I lowered the cloth from my face and offered the woman on the other side of the door a wan smile. “Hi, Julie,” I said. “Mind if we come in?”

Julie looked at me tiredly. There was a time when she would have launched herself for my throat, smoke or no smoke, and tried to kill me before Tybalt could stop her. These days, she restrains herself to a low-level disdain. Hatred takes too much energy. “Yes, but I’m not the one in charge here,” she said, and held the door open wider, so that we could come inside. “Hurry up. We don’t want too much smoke to get in.”

“After you,” said Tybalt.

I stepped through the door.

Every room in the Court of Cats used to belong to some other place. Knowe or mortal dwelling, it doesn’t make any difference; all that matters is that the place existed and was lost. The cats get the lost places. The Court of Cats is a patchwork maze of those lost places. The room Julie allowed us to enter was probably a barn once, in one of those small towns in the middle of America that wound up abandoned during the Great Depression. The walls had that sort of old-fashioned look, not historical, but aged. There was even a hayloft, and bales of hay were stacked against the walls.

Then there were the Cait Sidhe. The barn wasn’t crowded—it was big enough that it could have been used to host a wedding, and it would have taken more than that to make it seem really full—but it was definitely occupied. Most were in their human forms, only oddly colored skin and the occasional tail giving away their feline natures. A few were in full-on cat form, lounging on hay bales or draped across the rafters.

And one of them was striding toward us, mouth twisted into a thin, furious line. He was tall and dark-skinned, with eyes the color of green glass bottles and short gray-and-white hair striped like a tabby’s coat. Raj’s father, Samson.

Tybalt lowered his cloth, stepping forward so that he was between me and the oncoming Cait Sidhe. “Samson,” he said. “Has there been any—”

Samson’s fist slammed into his chin while he was still speaking, cutting off his sentence. Tybalt’s jaw snapped shut, eyes widening in surprise. Then they narrowed, his expression turning dangerous. I had to fight the urge to step out of the splatter zone.

Samson raised his fist to hit Tybalt again. Tybalt raised his hand, intercepting the blow before it could land.

“Samson,” he said again. This time, the other man’s name sounded less like an acknowledgment, and more like a threat. “You forget your place.”