“Anansi?” Pollux mutters.
We turn the corner, and I dim my light as Anansi’s eight eyes flick toward me, her two sets of arms tense, then the bottom set folds while the top signs,Why?She points at Pollux.
“A jorogumo turned spider fae…” Pollux utters.
Castor hums, smiling at Anansi as he rises from his barrel chair and faces us. “Polly. We’re in the middle of a signing lesson…” His smile turns threatening, and I feel the challenge run along our soul bond. “I hope your business with me is pleasant.”
Roughlyunpleasant, Pollux says, “What is going on?”
Anansi settles back in toward the shadows, and her lower limbs change from her human legs to the abdomen and legs of a spider. Crawling up the wall with them, she tucks herself in the ceiling corner.
Castor tuts. “Let’s not talk here…” Exiting the space with Anansi, he wraps his arm around my waist. “My love, might you fancy some tea?”
“Rooibos, please.”
He kisses my forehead. “Perfect.” Cocking a long ear back toward Pollux he says, less sweetly, “And for you, Polly?”
“Chai.”
?
“What did you do?” Pollux demands the very instant Castor takes his seat beside me after setting up the tiers of tea cakes, sandwiches, and scones in my favorite of the palace parlors. It’s warm, earthy, with deep dark shades and walls filled with books. Despite its coziness, the couch is large enough for Castor to bury me in should the compulsion overtake him.
I value that quality and enjoy how the possibility teases me.
Lifting his black teacup adorned with small white flowers, Castor murmurs, “Why, that’s hardly a good way to start a tea party, Polly.”
Irate air exits the big man.
I find myself preoccupied comparing their shoulders.
And I realize, rather despondently, that Billy outdoes them both, and the new maximum end of the spectrum now belongs to a very pretty girl.
“Darling,” Castor turns his full attention on me. “What has so suddenly troubled you?”
Lifting a teacup that matches his, I let the warm scent of rooibos soothe my distress. “I can tell you later.”
But, hopefully, you will forget instead.
Humming, Castor allows my answer and turns a harder address in Pollux’s direction. “As you can see, I have a very importantlaterto get to…so would you be so kind as to explain your uninvited presence before I have a mind to do as unseelie of old would have and consider this a slight worthy of retribution?”
“Weare those unseelie of old, Tor,” Pollux mutters, sighing a great big puff of steam out of his decidedlynotmatching teacup. “I came to check on my patient.”
All manner of antagonism melts out of Castor. “Oh.” He straightens himself on the deep ivory Chesterfield sofa. “I had not expected such dedication…but I suppose I should have.” Warmth. Happiness. Nostalgia. “It is veryyou.”
Pollux grunts. “I found her doing manual labor mere days after a harrowing experience that no doubt you can still tell she’s recovering from.”
Castor tilts his head. “She’s insisted she’s well enough, and I believe my mate. Is that yet ill-advised?”
Pollux grunts, again. “Yes. Very.”
“Well.” Castor sniffs, and sips, all indignation. “You did not tell us.”
“It had not occurred to me that she would be anything but confined in a cage and babied to death by you.”
Castor chuckles. “I’d be very content to oblige that; however, there’s much work to be done, and my dearness is not put in her cage when I am not there to let her out again at her bidding.”
“Speaking of thework,” Pollux narrows his eyes, “what is going on?”
