Free A Local Habitation by Seanan McGuire

way things worked. “We’ve had people who could fake faces and pass quizzes, but nobody’s been able to fake somebody else’s magic.” The word “yet” hung between us, unspoken.
    “Well, your uncle’s worried, and he asked me to come see how you were doing. Why didn’t you tell me who you were when I got here? We could’ve taken care of all this an hour ago.”
    “Do you know where you are?” she asked.
    I frowned. “I don’t see what that has to do with . . .”
    “Humor me.”
    “I’m in the County of Tamed Lightning.”
    “Do you know where the County is?”
    “Fremont?”
    “Fremont, where we’re sandwiched between two Duchies that don’t get along. We’re a shiny little independent County right where it’s not a good idea to have an independent County.”
    “I was under the impression that things were stable.” That could change at any time, of course, and there’s always a risk of small-scale civil war in Faerie—it’s something to do when you’re bored and immortal—but the modern world has reduced that risk substantially. The fae are poster children for Attention Deficit Disorder: give them something shiny to play with and they’ll forget they were about to chop your head off.
    January sighed. “Uncle Sylvester is respected around here. Something about him having a really big army he could use for squashing people like bugs.”
    “So that makes you even safer. Dreamer’s Glass would never bother you with Shadowed Hills standing right there.”
    “That’s the problem.”
    “Okay, now you’ve lost me.”
    “People think that because Sylvester’s my uncle, Tamed Lightning is an extension of his Duchy here to make him look ‘egalitarian and modern,’ and one day he’s going to pull us back in.” She slid off the desk, starting to pace. “They treat us like we don’t matter, or they assume we can get them favors and come around sniffing for political leverage. It got old, fast. So we stopped helping.”
    “You thought I was here to ask for a favor?”
    “The thought crossed my mind.”
    “Well, believe me, I’m not. I’m here because you stopped calling your uncle.”
    January shook her head. “That’s not true. I’ve left about eighteen messages. He just hasn’t been calling me back.” A wry expression crossed her face. “I know his phones work. I installed them.”
    “Why haven’t you just gone to Shadowed Hills?”
    “Same reason he hasn’t come here: if I leave, there’s a good chance Dreamer’s Glass will see it as an opportunity and invade.” She looked suddenly tired. “Welcome to my life. I just have to keep calling.”
    “What’s so important that you need to keep trying to reach him? Why didn’t you send a messenger?”
    She straightened, another smile blooming across her face. “Where are my manners? You can call me Jan. We’re not big on formalities here. Do you prefer October, Sir Daye . . . ?”
    “Toby’s fine,” I said, blinking at the change of subject. “Look, Jan, your uncle wanted—”
    “It’s funny that he didn’t tell you I wasn’t a Torquill. My mother was his sister, but she was just a Baroness. Dad was a Count, so I got his name.”
    Oh, root and branch, of course. When fae marry, the family name of the person with the higher title takes precedence under almost any circumstances. Faerie isn’t sexist. It’s just snobby. “Sorry. I missed that memo.”
    “Well, did he at least tell you about Mom?”
    “He mentioned her, yes.” The existence of a sister was an odd fact about an already odd family. The fae aren’t very fertile, and most fae twins are too weak to see adulthood; the fact that both Simon and Sylvester lived was strange enough. Adding a sister to the equation made it almost unreal. “Look—”
    “She was older by about a century. She died when I was little.”
    “Oh,” I said. That seemed inadequate. “I’m sorry.”
    “It’s okay.” She shrugged. “It was a long time ago.”
    “Oh.”