Madden came away with a small tug of the leash, and we followed Bridget from the crime scene, down the side of Wheeler Hall, and to a small, unassuming door painted a bland shade of tan.
“Faculty entrance,” she explained, producing a ring of keys. “Not meant for student use at any time, always locked from the outside. Makes it easier when we need to avoid justifying our grading choices.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Sorry, sorry.” She slotted a key into the lock. “I babble when I’m nervous. It’s a dreadful habit, but that doesn’t make it any easier to do away with. Come on.” She pulled the door open. We followed her inside.
I never went to college, and yet somehow I’ve spent more time at UC Berkeley than any non-student has any business doing. The halls were strange and familiar at the same time, just enough like the chemistry department where Walther worked that I felt like I could understand the basic layout, just different enough that I knew I’d get lost if I took my eyes off Bridget for a moment. Madden’s claws clacked against the tile. There were windows, but they were high and small and most of the blinds were drawn, casting the hall into a comfortable twilight.
“I thought there’d be classes going on,” said Quentin.
“Oh, there are,” said Bridget. “Mostly a floor below us. This is all offices and faculty space. It’ll doubtless be gutted the next time someone gets it in their head to renovate and ‘modernize,’ replaced by some sort of commons that leaves us nowhere to do our work in peace, but for now, we can get about without treading on students every time we turn around. Love them, Lord knows we do; that doesn’t mean they make the process of educating them any easier when they insist on being present all the time.”
She stopped in front of a door that looked like every other door in the hall, save for the nameplate next to it, which announced that this was the office of Dr. Bridget Ames. “It’s funny, you know,” she said, as she unlocked the door. “My colleagues all think I’ve gone very modern and progressive, since I went and got married and didn’t change my name. They approve, for the most part—my entire publication history is tied to my maiden name—but they didn’t expect it of me. Hard to explain that my groom hasn’t a surname to share with me.”
“If he ever needs to do anything in the mortal world, he’ll probably go by Etienne Ames,” I said.
Bridget looked pleased. “Hadn’t thought of that,” she said, and opened the door. “Forgive my mess.”
“Forgiven,” I said, and stepped inside.
Bridget’s office was small. Not quite cramped, but more than halfway there, especially thanks to the imposing bookcases that lined the walls, each one loaded until the shelves began to sag in the middle. In case that wasn’t enough, piles of books and papers turned the floor into an obstacle course and the desk into a narrow strip of usable space. An avalanche seemed to be impending from all directions. I moved to the center of the room, trying to avoid touching anything. May, Quentin, and Madden all had the same idea. Madden even straightened up and returned to his quasi-human form, probably so his tail wouldn’t take out a pile of papers.
Bridget blinked as she closed the door behind herself. “No matter how many times I see that, it never gets less jarring. Hello, Master Seneschal.”
“Hi, Bess,” said Madden, somehow managing to give the impression that his tail was wagging even when he didn’t have one. “How’s your husband?”
“Well as ever. Stuck-up and hidebound, but who isn’t?” She smiled for a moment. Only for a moment. Smile fading, she said, “October, you had something you wanted to show me?”
“In a second.” I looked to May. “What did you find?”
“More of those sachets in her drawers and under her bed—about a dozen, all told. There was even one hanging in the closet. Iron shavings and salt along every threshold in the house, and rowan twigs above the windows.” May’s expression was grim. “It’s all low-grade stuff, charms and trinkets. The sort of thing someone could stumble across making by accident, almost. Not enough to actually keep fae out, but enough to make anyone with a measurable amount of fae blood uncomfortable in that house.”
“It’s the ‘almost’ that gets me,” I said. “Were there sachets in anyone’s drawers apart from Gillian’s?”
May shook her head. “No, and I checked. I almost got caught a couple of times, too. If they’d been there, I would have found them.”
“Right. Quentin?”
“On it.” He pulled the foil-wrapped sachet out of his coat pocket, grimacing at the weight of the thing. He offered it to Bridget.
“What’s this?” she asked, glancing to me before taking the sachet out of his hand. She peeled the foil carefully back and frowned as that sharp herbal smell wafted into the room.
I sneezed, my eyes already starting to water. Swell. Wiping them with the back of my hand, I said, “We found that in Gillian’s room. You’re the folklore professor. What can you tell us?”
“You’re sneezing, and your eyes are red.” Bridget looked at me sidelong. “First thing I can tell you is that you’re definitely allergic to the stuff. All of you. More than that is going to take me opening it up, and that’s going to release more of it into the air. Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
I looked at the others. Only Madden seemed to be as bad off as I was: Quentin’s eyes were red, and May was sniffling, but neither of them looked like they were going to be running for the Benadryl any time soon. Madden’s nose was running. That made sense. No matter what shape he was in, his nose was better than any of ours.
I looked back at Bridget. “Would it help to know what’s inside?”
“Yes, absolutely.” Bridget weighed the sachet in her hand. “This would be easy enough to make. You can buy these little mesh bags at any craft store. They’re used for making potpourri bundles, to put in with your clothes and keep them fresh.”
“Humans are weird,” muttered Quentin.
“No question about that,” I said. I took a shallow breath, trying to avoid inhaling more of the smell than absolutely necessary, and said, “Dill, gorse, St. John’s wort, fennel, kingcup—um, I think ‘marsh marigold’ is the more common name for that—and Scots kale.”
Bridget’s eyes grew huge. “Scots kale?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“All right. I . . . oh, you poor things, you’re all miserable. Hang on.” She crossed to her desk, opened a drawer, and dropped the sachet inside. The air seemed to clear as soon as the drawer was closed. Bridget watched us closely as we stopped sniffling, although my eyes continued to burn. I rubbed at them, trying to be unobtrusive. Bridget frowned. “Normally, taking an allergen away doesn’t change things that quickly. Something must have been done to the things.”
“If whoever made those for Gillian were trying to keep the fae away from her, there are ways to make herbs and simples more effective for short periods of time,” I said haltingly.
“How do you know she didn’t make the bundles herself?” asked Quentin. “Maybe the Luidaeg left some memories behind and Gillian got scared and tried to keep the bad dreams away.”
It ached to think I could be a bad dream for my own child. But he wasn’t wrong. If she remembered anything about what had happened while Rayseline had her, she wouldn’t be sleeping peacefully. Still, I shook my head. “It’s marshwater work. Even if she went to someone and asked for the sachets, she wouldn’t have been able to do the crafting. She wouldn’t know how.”
“Marshwater?” asked Bridget.
“Little magic. Hedge magic. It’s sort of like alchemy, sometimes, in that it’s as much about the ingredients as it is about the power behind them. And it’s nothing like alchemy at all, because it’s not about natural talent or being able to change what you’re working with. I’m not an alchemist. I was pretty good at marshwater charms, back when they were all I had.” I waved a hand, trying to encompass the s
cope of the differences. “If I tried to do most of them now, I’d burn them out. But there are things you could do, if someone walked you through the process of figuring out exactly how.”
“Magic? Me? I thought you needed to be a merlin to be human and do magic.” Bridget looked far too interested in the idea. Etienne’s kitchen was probably going to be a very exciting place for a while.
That was fine. He needed more excitement in his life. “Big magic, yes. Merlins can cast spells I can’t manage, and no matter what line of descent their fae ancestor claimed, they don’t seem to follow any of the normal divisions—a Tuatha merlin might be incredibly skilled at flower magic, or a Tylwyth merlin might be an incredible blood-worker. They don’t have the talents of their ancestors, but if they can put together a ritual for something, they can probably bully the universe into letting them have it. Marshwater work is . . . it’s different. Some of it isn’t magic at all, not in the inborn, automatic way that purebloods understand. But if you soak kingcup in moonlight for nine days, it lasts longer. That sort of . . . thing.”
Everyone was watching me. Bridget looked fascinated. Madden looked appalled. I managed, somehow, not to squirm.
The purebloods have always liked to think they had the monopoly on magic. Quentin had spent enough time with me to figure out that not only did the purebloods not run as much of the world as they thought they did, thinking otherwise was likely to get him seriously injured, if not killed. In my line of work—and by extension, his, at least for the moment—underestimating an opponent because of old stereotypes is a good way to wind up dead.
Madden, though . . . for all that he was seneschal to a woman that some people called, sneeringly, “the Changeling Queen,” for all that he worked in the mortal world and counted humans as friends, he was a pureblood raised by purebloods, with nothing to force him to see or sympathize with the changeling way of doing things. This was probably very confusing for him.
Tough. “Gillian doesn’t know anything about marshwater charms, or at least not anything she could have learned from me. You’re the folklore professor, Bridget. Does this look like something one of your students would have put together?”
“I won’t say no, because I have students who come from all sorts of traditions. Some are religious people who happen to adore fairy tales, or theology majors picking up a bit of a grounding in what they call ‘pagan nonsense,’ or actual pagans.” Bridget spoke slowly, picking her words with care. “The pagans, especially the Wiccans, do a great deal of herbal, ah, ‘witchcraft,’ although I’ve been careful never to form too firm an opinion on it.”
“Better to stay neutral than to risk upsetting your students,” said May.
“Exactly so,” said Bridget. “There might be a few who’d managed to stumble on something that actually works, but if this is what you say it is . . . ”
“This is the crafting of someone who knows the fae are real—and knows they can be kept away if you only weave the right combination of herbs and simples and rituals. I don’t know how. I never wanted to learn. But it wouldn’t be impossible knowledge to collect.”
“Jocelyn?” asked Quentin. “She knew more than she should have, for someone too thin-blooded to see without ointment. Um. No offense, ma’am.”
“None taken,” said Bridget. “I know my place in Faerie is predicated on loopholes and bends in the rules, and I try to tread lightly, to avoid giving offense.”
“Jocelyn wouldn’t be attempting to keep the fae away, though, not when she’s wearing fairy ointment and trying to get Gilly to talk about her famous family.” I touched my pocket gingerly, feeling the piece of glass I had concealed there. “Not Jocelyn.”
“She definitely wouldn’t have put iron at the thresholds, not if her mother’s a changeling,” said May. “This wasn’t her.”
“Why didn’t the iron harm any of you?” asked Bridget. “I always thought . . .” She stopped, shrugging. “When I was trying to protect Chelsea from her father, iron seemed the easiest way.”
“It wasn’t pure iron, for one, and none of us touched it, for two,” I said. “If there had been more, or if we’d come directly into contact with it, things might be different.”
“I see,” said Bridget.
“It’s been a fun day.” I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to sort everything we knew so far into orderly categories, or at least into something that would be a little bit less confusing. It wasn’t working. I opened my eyes again and pulled the glass out of my pocket. “I’m going to try to find a blood memory now.”
May nodded, concern blossoming in her expression like a terrible flower. She knew the risks I was taking better than anyone, because she remembered taking them when she was me. Blood is where magic and memory live: blood is the key to a lot of questions that might otherwise go entirely unanswered. That’s the good part. I’m not even taking much of a risk when I ride the blood these days, because I’m strong enough now that I can pull myself free before it can pull me down.
The bad part is that whatever the blood wants to tell me, I’ll have to hear. That’s the trade-off. If I taste someone’s blood, I learn what they have to share. And, sometimes, that learning hurts.
I sighed, unwrapped the piece of glass, and turned it between my fingers, looking for the biggest stretch of stain. This would have been easier with more blood. It always was. Unfortunately, waiting until I could get unfettered access to the car—probably in some police impound lot, possibly after it had been photographed and sampled and disinfected—might mean waiting long enough for whoever had Gillian to get tired of holding her.
Assuming they hadn’t already. And that, right there, was why I was hesitating. Some of my frantic forward momentum had bled off when I was sitting on the creek bank, waiting for my ankle to heal, and what had replaced it was a numb, resigned dread. I had freed my daughter from Faerie and walked away, trusting her father to keep her safe. I had given up any claim to the family I’d tried to make with the two of them, and moved on to making a new family, a new life, with Tybalt. Now Tybalt was gone, and I was facing the possible loss of my child. If she was dead, the blood would tell me. If she was alive, the blood would tell me that, too. I had to find out. I had to know which way I was running.
I didn’t want to.
Quentin touched my arm. I looked at him, nodded, and placed the glass on my tongue. It cut me almost instantly, but I had been counting on that: while my blood would have confused the crime scene, all it would do here was make my magic stronger and make it easier for me to find the things I needed to know.
Blood—both mine and Gillian’s—flooded my mouth.
Holding the glass shard between my teeth, I swallowed.
SIX
THE PARKING LOT IS dark around me, lit only by the distant glow of streetlights aimed to illuminate other things, other places. It’s not safe to walk across campus alone at night—not fair, never fair, do they tell the boys it’s not safe to go where they want, to be who they want to be? But this is the world we live in, and we can’t trade it for a better one—but it’s safe to drive, as long as I’m in my car. The dark can’t take the safety away. The car means freedom. The car means I’m as good as anyone.
Gillian’s love for her car was an ache so deep it almost knocked me out of the memory. She was my daughter, and I was pretty sure she hadn’t felt love like that for me in a very long time. I groped until I found Quentin’s hand. He tightened his fingers around mine, grounding me. There wasn’t time to acknowledge him: there wasn’t enough blood on the glass for that. I bit down harder, slicing my tongue again, adding my own blood and strength to the working.
The blood memories reasserted themselves, veiling the world in red. Check engine light is on. I pause to make a note for myself. Freedom only lasts if you take care of it, that’s what Mel always says. I’m going to take care of it. I’m going to continue earning my freedom.
Som
eone passes in front of the car. The lights are in the wrong place to let me see their face, but they pause and wave, and so I wave back, choosing to be friendly, safe behind my closed, locked doors. I can afford friendliness when there’s no way they can get to me. I even feel a little smug about it. I’m safe. I’m free. Nothing can touch me—
Something hits the window. It shatters under the impact, there’s glass flying everywhere, and it hurts, it hurts, there’s glass in the air and my eyes are closed so the glass doesn’t get in them and I can’t see anything, and it hurts why does it—
An object harder and more substantial than shards of glass hit Gillian in the side of the head. There was a sound like bending bone, and the faint, inexplicable scent of cinnamon. That was where the memory cut off, extinguished along with her consciousness.
I snapped back into my own body with a gasp, turning to stare at my companions. There was blood on my lips, hot and sticky and almost entirely my own. I spat the sucked-clean cube of glass into my palm and used the back of my other hand to wipe my face.
“She was alive when they took her,” I said, voice barely shaking. I wanted to be proud of that. I couldn’t muster the energy. Gillian’s pain echoed through every nerve in my body, reminding me of how much she had suffered. How much she could still be suffering. She didn’t heal like I did. Any injuries she’d incurred during her abduction would remain, sketched on her skin like a memoir of trauma.
“Good,” said Bridget firmly. “That means you have time to find her. Is there anything I can do to help you?”
I started to refuse, then paused, considering her offer and my options. “That sachet,” I said finally. “Can you take it to Walther and have him see what he can make of it? It’s better if none of us tries to carry it.”
“Of course,” said Bridget. “I’ll call you as soon as I have answers.” She sounded relieved. Belatedly, I realized we’d dumped all this on her without warning. She cared about us; she wanted to help; she was so far out of her depth that she couldn’t find it with a map. Being given a task to perform that got her away from the rest of us must have seemed like a blessing.
Night and Silence (October Daye) Page 11
