★★★☆☆ Your Piteous Heart, by Seanan McGuire
Tybalt continues his progress towards the Westlands
Your Piteous Heart
Seanan McGuire
Tybalt continues his progress towards the Westlands
“Your Piteous Heart” is Seanan McGuire’s August 2026 Patreon reward story. At 26 pages in PDF, this one is slightly shorter than the previous installment, “No More Amazement.” McGuire introduces it as follows:
Well, here we are again, as Tybalt transitions from a relatively peaceful time in Armorica to the next stage of his adventures. We’re moving toward the Westlands and October, but there’s the small matter of a throne to be handled before anything can really change...
Tybalt is having a pretty lousy week, that’s all we’re going to say here. Best read after last month’s story.
Image: Alice and Elsie, right after Elsie came home. Like, two days after Elsie came home. Alice understood that she was meeting her successor, and she was very good about the handoff.
The big event of “No More Amazement” was the death of Tybalt’s adopted changeling daughter Rozenn. Trying to prevent that tragedy, Tybalt incurred the enmity of one Asier, a powerful and dangerous Fae. Consequently, Tybalt is a dangerous man to be around. What’s more, he has nothing left to lose—nothing that he loves, that is.
He is still King of the Court of Silvered Cats, the London Cait Sidhe enclave. That is what McGuire means by “the small matter of a throne”. “Your Piteous Heart” is the story of the severing of that last link.
This one was not, I thought, as good as “No More Amazement.” Despite its name, “No More Amazement” was less predictable. “Your Piteous Heart” simply does (competently!) what needs to be done to move the story forward in the obvious way.
Sounds like a good story! 💯
And sometimes stories are indeed not necessarily about being more enjoyable than other connected stories but rather about moving the story forward in a competent way. ⚖️
Thank you for sharing this review with us! 🙏