Unfortunately, feeling sorry for Raysel doesn’t change the fact that she’s a sadistic nutcase. I would have been happy to keep my distance, but in addition to being the daughter of my liege, Raysel is convinced that her husband Connor—my sort-of-ex, and her spouse for purely diplomatic reasons—still has the hots for me. Even more unfortunately, she isn’t wrong. It wasn’t that we had an untrusting relationship; I simply trusted her to kill me if she got the chance.

I leaned up against the wall next to the kitchen doorway. “So what brings you here today? Beyond the urge to critique my housekeeping, I mean.”

“I have a job for you.”

“Figured on that part,” I said, sipping my coffee. “What’s the deal?”

“I need you to go to Fremont.”

“What?” That wasn’t what I’d been expecting him to say. I wasn’t entirely sure what I’d expected, but it wasn’t Fremont.

Sylvester raised an eyebrow. “Fremont. It’s a city, near San Jose.”

“I know.” In addition to being a city near San Jose, Fremont was at the leading edge of the tech industry and one of the most boring places in California. Last time I’d checked, it had a fae population that could be counted on both hands, because boring or not, it wasn’t safe. It was sandwiched between two Duchies—Shadowed Hills and Dreamer’s Glass—and had been declared an independent County three years after I vanished, partially on its own merits, but partially to delay the inevitable supernatural turf war.

The fae are territorial by nature. We like to fight, especially when we know we’ll win. One of those Duchies was eventually going to decide it needed a new sunroom, and that little “independent County” was going to find itself right in the middle. The formation of Tamed Lightning may have been a good political move, but in the short term, it guaranteed that living in Fremont wasn’t for the faint of heart.

I couldn’t think of many reasons to go to Fremont. Most of them involved diplomatic duty. I hate diplomatic duty. I’m not very good at it, largely because I’m not very diplomatic.

“Good. That makes this easier.”

Diplomatic duty. It had to be. “Easier?”

“It’s about my niece.”

“Your niece?” Talking to Sylvester is sometimes an adventure in and of itself. “I didn’t know you had a niece.”

“Yes.” He at least had the grace to look sheepish as he continued, saying, “Her name’s January. She’s my sister’s daughter. We . . . weren’t advertising the relationship until recently, for political reasons. She’s a lovely girl—a bit strange, but sweet—and I need you to go check on her.” Sylvester was calling someone “a bit strange?” That didn’t bode well. It was like the Luidaeg calling someone “a bit temperamental.”

“So what’s going on?”

“She can’t visit often—political reasons, again—but she calls weekly to keep me updated. She hasn’t called or answered her phone for three weeks. Before that, she seemed . . . distracted. I’m afraid there may be something wrong.”