#after like a week or two quentin is like '...toby have you uh. noticed anything unusual.'

[words-writ-in-starlight]

Also???? Court of Cats stuff? It doesn’t have to even be connected to Toby herself (altho I’d love to see the members of the court that like Toby, who have to exist SOMEWHERE) it can be just. The cats and the humans they adopt.

IDK, this is after Toby and Tybalt get together but before A Winter Long, I haven’t figured anything else out.  I was just charmed by the concept.

Toby is on an extremely unremarkable missing person’s case whenshe first notices the cats--really normal, as such things go.  The girl’sprobably fine, just run off with her boyfriend.  Everyone involved ishuman, as far as Toby can tell, which means that, well, everyone’shuman, and these days, that means this is fucking small potatoes.

Theboyfriend may bein a gang.  Toby’s pretty sure mortal guns, copper and lead, aren’t aproblem though, which is why she’s alone in her car.  Tybalt will complainif she gets shot, but she’ll be fine, and all she needs is a photo of the girl.

But that doesn’t matter.  What matters is the flicker ofpearly white Toby catches in the corner of her vision, as it hops up onto afence and disappears around a corner.

It’s the fourth such flicker that Toby’s seen in the three hoursshe’s been camped out on the curb--auburn, two black, and now white.  

“All right, that’s it,” Toby mutters, and doesn’t even bother tothrow a don’t-look-here over her human illusion as she hops out of the hiddencar.  The mask on the car is sturdy enough to keep her from getting towedor keyed while she’s gone.

Toby doesn’t bother to try and sneak around the corner. Instead, she strolls into the alley as open and casual as you please, hands inher coat pockets, and just positions herself, as if by accident, between thedead end and the exit, one shoulder propped lazily against the wall andeyebrows arched.

“So,” Toby says to the alley at large.  “Are you stillhere?”

For a moment, she thinksthat she’s talking to nothing but some blank brick and an empty dumpster.   Thenthere’s an audible sigh and a flare of magic, chamomile and asphalt, and a CaitSidhe rises out of the far corner with the insouciant expression of a cat caughtdoing something against the rules.  She’snot familiar—she must be the red cat Toby caught a glimpse of, with rumpledhair marbled pale and deep auburns—but she stuffs both hands into her jeans pocketsand grins at Toby, sharp teeth and shamelessness.

“Hey,” the woman says, as ifthey’ve just met going about their day.  “How’sit going?”

“Do I know you?”  It’s a rude way to open the conversation, butfrankly, it’s three in the afternoon and Toby doesn’t really have good mannersin her right now.  “Or your friends?”

“No,” the woman says, andoffers a hand tipped, still smiling.  “I’mRuby.  Nice to meet you properly, Sir Daye.”

“A pleasure,” Toby says,shaking the hand suspiciously.  “DidTybalt need something?  Is everythingokay?  Or is he really that sure that I’llget myself stabbed the moment he leaves me alone for more than an hour?”

“You can’t blame him,”another voice says—this one a young man, very young, closer to a boy, with lushwhite hair.  “I’m Jacob.  Hi.”

“I can sure as hell blame himfor spying on me,” Toby replies, but it lacks fire.  The kid looks exhausted, but cheerful, bouncingnervously on his toes.  “So, what can Ido for you?”

“Oh, nothing,” Ruby says.  “The King didn’t send us.  My brother-in-law did.”

Toby rubs both hands over herface and rakes them back through her hair. “I really don’t have time to deal with another coup, if you don’t mind,so--”

“Oh, ash, no,” Ruby laughs.  “My sister is Opal, I think you met her.  Sort of.” The humor drains out of her face all at once, so fast that it leaves Tobya little startled at the sudden change.  “Yousaved her life, and her last kitten,” Ruby says, pinning Toby with eyes such astartling shade of amber gold that they seem to glow like candle flames in thealley.  Toby feels them hit her as firmlyas any arrow, cutting as deep as any knife. “My sister.  You avenged her children.  We can never repay what you did for us.”

“Gabriel suggested that wekeep an eye on you,” Jacob says, solemn in the way that only the very young canmanage.  His eyes are blue and bright, a coldercolor than Quentin’s but wide and heavy-lashed, making him look very youngindeed.  “So we have been.”

Toby stares.  She barely manages to keep her jaw fromfalling slack.  Her blank confusion mustbe tattooed all over her face, because Ruby cracks a smile again and offers aflourishing bow.  

“Anywhere you go in ourterritory,” she says, straightening, and the smile is at odds with the formalityof her speech, “all you need do is call for help, Sir Daye.  The Court of Dreaming Cats will answer, if wecan.”

“And run and tell the King,”Jacob adds.  “This--” he gestures as ifto indicate their benevolent stalking “—wasn’t his idea.  But he did say that if you were in troubleand we didn’t tell him, he’d skin us alive. Letting his lady get murdered is untidy.”

Toby thinks she reallyshouldn’t be surprised—cats can be as loyal as any other animal, in their ownway—but she is.  She’s never heard of theCait Sidhe putting someone under their protection quite so thoroughly, but thenno one talks much about the Cait Sidhe and it’s entirely possible they haven’tin quite some time.  Maybe Samson gaveher a skewed idea of her standing in the Court of Cats, though, because Ruby isstaring at her with a stubborn set to her jaw, and Jacob looks as frankly preparedto disobey her as Tybalt ever has, and—

“Untidy,” Toby manages tochoke out, and then she’s laughing so hard she thinks she might crack arib.  “No, I’m fine,” she gasps, waving ahand at Ruby.  “I’m fine.”  Toby takes a few deep breaths and straightensup.  “So, what, your whole Court is justtrailing me around making sure I don’t get in too much trouble?”

“Not all of us,” Ruby says,and looks a little rueful for the first time. “I’m not going to say you’re, uh, universally popular, Sir Daye.  The ones who wanted the power Samson promisedthem, or the ones who think crossing bloodlines is a problem—they’re notthrilled with you.  But not all of us arelooking to depose the King, if you get me. Tybalt’s been King all my life, and he always did right by us.  And so did you, when you were up against thewall and could have left us to die. Anything we can do to keep you two alive and happy, we’re going to doour best.”

 Toby gets used to seeing cats—notalways Cait Sidhe, either, sometimes they seem to just be cats—dotting her path through the city like gargoyles.  They’re not everywhere, they’re not aconstant presence, and they seem almost coincidental, as if they just happen tobe there when she’s there, by nothing more than luck.  She thinks it should feel like she’s beingspied on, but they always wander off when they’ve seen she’s well, or return totheir naps, or carry on with whatever feline business the presence of theirKing’s consort happens to interrupt.  It feelsmore like having backup.

Sometimes she sees a marbled red cat who grins like a shameless girl and Toby gives her a mocking salute.

The first time Tybalt sees it, he laughs for a week.