Free Strangeness and Charm: The Courts of the Feyre by Mike Shevdon

you, really?"
      "I've stopped counting."
      "Very convenient."
      "Age does not mean so much to the Feyre. We do not age as humans do. Once you stop growing you will stop ageing too."
      "At least I won't have to worry about wrinkles like Mum does."
      They reached a fence and Tate held the gate open for Alex to walk through. They continued in silence for a while.
      "I was going to see her."
      "Who?"
      "Mum. That's where I was going. Dad won't take me, so I thought I'd take myself."
      "Ah, the truth. At last."
      "You won't tell Dad?"
      Tate was silent for a moment. Then he said, "Why do you think your father does not take you to see her?"
      "Dunno, I think he's afraid of what she'll say when she finds out I'm not dead."
      Tate said nothing, and they continued walking. By now the side of the house facing them was in shade and Alex kept glancing towards the house, wondering whether they were being watched from the darkened windows.
      "She's not gonna believe it to start with, is she? I mean, it's like mental. Isn't it?"
      "Yes," he said quietly, "It's like mental."
      "Are you taking the mickey?"
      "Sorry, Miss?"
      "Never mind. So are you going to tell Dad?"
      "What is there to tell? We went for a walk."
      Alex glanced up at him. "Yeah, we did, didn't we. Do you play tennis?"
      "No," said Tate.
      "Fellstamp played with me. He kept trying to look up my skirt."
      "The way Fellstamp told me, you kept bending over in front of him."
      "I never!" She glanced back towards the house. "He cheats."
      "So do you, apparently."
      "Yeah, well. He started it."
      "It does not make for good tennis if both of you cheat."
      There was a pause.
      "Anyway, the bats are broken."
      "So I heard."
      "Does he talk about me?" she asked.
      "Who?"
      "Fellstamp."
      "Not especially. Why?"
      "Nothing. I mean he obviously said something, you know, about the bats."
      "He said he didn't think you'd be playing tennis again."
      They rounded the end of the house and turned along the frontage. For the first time Alex could see Tate's face. The individual bristles on his chin caught the light so that it looked like it was frosted.
      "I could fix the bats," volunteered Alex.
      "Perhaps you should. They weren't yours to warp like that."
      "I never warped them. They were twisted already," she protested.
      Tate's eyebrow rose fractionally.
      "He was cheating," she repeated, defensively.
      Tate shook his head, slowly.
      "He does look kinda cute in shorts, though, don't you think?" Alex grinned.
      "I don't think I've ever noticed," said Tate.
      Alex looked up, letting the moonlight fill her eyes. "All that working out with swords and stuff really defines the thigh muscles, you know what I mean?"
      "I imagine you see him a little differently, Miss," said Tate.
      "Why do you call me Miss, Tate? Only Mullbrook and the stewards call me Miss, and they have to because they work here, but you say it like you don't mean it."
      "It pleases me to call you Miss, Miss." There was that low sound again, a soft huffing that might have been laughter.
      "Yeah, well, seems to me like you're taking the piss, Miss," she said.
      "Then what would you have me call you?"
      "My name?"
      "Very well, Miss Alexandra."
      "Now you're teasing me. Why can't you call me Alex like everyone else does?"
      "There is power in names," said Tate.
      "What does that mean?"
      "It means that how you are called in some ways defines you. Miss is a title, not a name. Once you would have been Mistress Alexandra."
      "Makes me sound like a floozy, or a school-marm."
      "It is an honorific, or it used to be."
      "I quite like that. The Honourable Mistress Alexandra Dobson," Alex tested the title out for style, "accompanied by the honourable Mister Tate….do you have a family name, Tate?"
      Tate smiled, "Not exactly, no."
      "Any brothers or