Ashes of Honor: An October Daye Novel

by Seanan McGuire

  “It was a smart move,” I said, and started walking. Quentin paced me. “There’s just one thing I want to know.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Why the hell did April have a sword? I don’t think there’s anyone in that County who was traditionally trained.”

  “She didn’t say.”

  “Right.”

  We exchanged strained smiles—just two more idiots whistling past the graveyard—and walked on in silence. Quentin let me take the lead, although only by a few steps. It was reassuring to know that he was at my back. I wasn’t walking into yet another brutally stupid situation alone. I needed people. Losing Connor had made me lose sight of that for a little while. Even that little while had been too damn long. I had too much to live for to sit around letting myself be lost in mourning.

  The light from our charms reflected off a pair of green eyes ahead of us. Quentin stiffened. I smiled and held out my arm to stop him from doing anything we’d all regret. “What did you find?” I asked.

  The green eyes rose, going from floor level to the height of a normal man, and Tybalt stepped out of the dark. “You were right; the receiving hall is ahead. But there’s something strange about this passage.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It used to be used frequently. I can smell the tracks of dozens of people, all of them hurrying about their business.”

  I didn’t ask how he knew they were hurrying. If I can tease a person’s family history from a drop of blood, I’m perfectly willing to believe a King of Cats can tell whether they were in a rush by smelling the tracks they left behind them. “And?”

  “And no one has been here in days. These passages have been deserted.”

  “That fits with what April said about Riordan withdrawing her forces. If she’s moved her army somewhere, she probably moved most of her household staff to the same place. Otherwise, you wind up with a hungry army sacking the nearest McDonalds, and that’s not good for anybody.”

  Quentin frowned. “But where are they all going?”

  “That’s the twenty-million-dollar question. Come on.” This time, Tybalt walked with us, a silent, reassuring presence that paced slightly ahead as we made our way down the hall. I let him take the lead. He knew where we were going, after all, while I just had a vague sense that we were heading in the right direction.

  The hall eventually started presenting us with turns. We had made the second when the charm in my hand flared to a brilliant, blazing red. Quentin’s charm did the same half a heartbeat later. The light painted the hallway the color of blood, dancing and wavering like candlelight, flickering like a star.

  “Root and branch, she’s here!” I said, and took off running before I realized what I was going to do. At least I didn’t need Tybalt to direct me anymore; the charm knew which way to go, and I was just the vehicle it was using to get there. It yanked on my hand like a living thing, urging me to greater speeds. Tybalt paced me, each of his long strides equaling two of mine, while Quentin lagged behind—but he was still running, all of us racing toward something we knew nothing about.

  Well. We did know one thing. We knew that whatever we were racing toward, Chelsea was there.

  The hall ended in another blank wall. I nearly slammed into it, the charm pulling me on faster than my feet could process what was happening. I managed to skid to a stop, putting out my arm to force Quentin to do the same. He made a soft “oof” noise as he collided with my elbow. Then he ducked under my arm, shoving the short sword into his belt before beginning to tap a rapid pattern against the wood with his now-free hand. The charm kept trying to jerk me forward, not seeming concerned by the fact that I can’t walk through walls. That was my problem. It just wanted to get me to Chelsea, and if it had to break my skull to make that happen, it really didn’t care.

  “Almost there,” said Quentin through gritted teeth. The strain in his voice told me just how hard his charm was yanking on him.

  “Breathe,” I advised.

  He shot me a grateful look and kept tapping. A few more seconds passed, and the section of wall slid smoothly open. There was fabric on the other side; another of those damn tapestries Riordan was so fond of. I signaled the others to silence—maybe unnecessarily, but I was definitely more interested in being safe than sorry—and moved past Quentin, stepping through the opening.

  The tapestry was actually hanging about two feet away from the wall, creating an artificial corridor for servants to use when entering the reception room. That made sense; if the tapestry had been flush with the wall, it would have been hard to get the illusion of invisible service to work the way that it was supposed to. I inched carefully along until I reached the end of the tapestry, and peeked out into the receiving room.

  It was empty, unless you wanted to count the enormous hole cut out of the air behind the throne. It was unguarded, and through it I could see the bracken-choked Annwn moors stretching off toward the distant shadow of a high-walled castle. I stopped where I was, staring, even as the Luidaeg’s charm tried to pull me toward the hole.

  Tybalt and Quentin stepped up behind me and joined me in silent contemplation of the portal. We were safely hidden by the tapestry, and we needed a moment to regroup. It was a little reassuring that I wasn’t the only one completely floored by what I was seeing.

  Finally, Quentin asked, “What is it?”

  “Annwn,” said Tybalt. “One of the deeper realms.”

  “Chelsea,” I said, and started walking. Tybalt and Quentin followed close behind me, all of us moving as fast as we could.

  “What is it doing there?” asked Quentin.

  “Well, sugar, it’s standing open, waiting for me,” said Riordan. I stiffened, coming to a stop. Tybalt hissed, a soft, almost smothered sound. Slowly, the three of us turned to see the Duchess of Dreamer’s Glass stepping out from behind a tapestry on the other side of the room, back in her jeans and black T-shirt, with a faint smile on her classically beautiful face.

  “Where’s Chelsea?” I asked.

  Riordan shook her head. The light from our charms glittered off the ruby at her throat. “That’s what I don’t like about you, Sir Daye. You’re always right to business, no pleasantries, no playing nice. It makes a body want to play rough, just to show you that you ought to have some manners.”

  “I assure you, her manners are among the best in this room,” said Tybalt, tone frosty.

  “I have no trouble believing that.” Riordan turned her attention on Tybalt, smile growing wider. “It was awfully nice of you to come with her. Saves me the trouble of having someone go find you.”

  I stared at her, a sudden, horrible realization growing in the pit of my stomach. Duchess Riordan was paranoid. Everyone knew that. It was what made her such a dangerous neighbor to have. Why would someone with that well-earned a reputation for paranoia leave a hole in their defenses as large as the one Tybalt had exploited to bring us to her knowe?

  Answer: she wouldn’t.

  “Tybalt, get us a doorway to the Shadow Roads,” I murmured, hoping that Riordan was too far away to hear me. “Get us a doorway to the Shadow Roads now.”

  He gave me a sideways look, but he didn’t argue. His fingers twitched, moving toward the shadows to our left. Then they stilled, his pupils narrowing to startled slits.

  “I…I can’t,” he said. “They aren’t there.”

  Riordan was still smiling. “If you were just going for your back door, sorry, sugars, but I had it locked down as soon as you were through my wards. You’re going to be the recipients of my hospitality whether you like it or not.”

  “I’m voting not,” I said, loudly enough for her to hear. “Where’s Chelsea? I’m not going to ask you again.”

  “You shouldn’t lie when you don’t have to. Makes it difficult to believe a word you say. You’re going to ask me again and again, and keep on asking, probably right up until the point where we get tired of it and have you gagged.” Riordan’s smile subsided into a look of weary irritat
ion. “You know, my life would be a lot easier if people like you would just learn your place and not bother with things like this.”

  “She’s a little girl.”

  “She’s a changeling. She’s got no place in this world and no place in the world she comes from. But because she’s a useful tool, maybe she can find herself a place.” Riordan indicated the hole with a sweep of her hand. “Maybe it’s waiting for her out there.”

  “The worse you scare her, the more she undermines Faerie!” said Quentin. “This is treason.”

  “Against whom, little boy? The mad Queen in her castle by the sea? Or maybe the High King and Queen, off in their ice palace in Toronto? By the time anyone thinks to tell them I’ve been naughty, I’ll be long gone. And you talk like this has never happened before. The Summerlands have always survived. That’s the thing about tools. They may do a lot of damage while they’re working, but, inevitably, they break.”

  Her voice was calm and reasonable throughout. The sinking in my stomach got worse. I’ve dealt with madmen and zealots, people who were so far down their personal rabbit holes that they genuinely thought that whatever they were doing was the right thing. Duchess Riordan didn’t fall into that category.

  Duchess Riordan was perfectly, dangerously sane. And that was something I could see being a major problem if we wanted to get out of this alive.

  “I’m going to give you one more chance,” I said, as calmly as I could. “Give Chelsea to us, and we’ll leave your lands, and we won’t come back. You haven’t done any permanent damage. You haven’t committed any crimes.” Even after everything she’d done, she hadn’t done a single thing most purebloods would acknowledge as “wrong.” Stealing a changeling who’d never been given her Choice would practically be viewed as community service in some circles. The Queen might even give her a public commendation, if it weren’t for the part where Chelsea was undermining the fabric of Faerie.

  “No,” said Riordan.

  Folletti appeared around us, seeming to materialize out of thin air. And a figure stepped out of the portal connecting the throne room to Annwn.

  “Hello, Sire,” said Samson. He was smiling poisonously. “I told you your association with these…people…would be the death of you. Better to keep to your own kind.”

  “Sadly, a skill I have never possessed,” said Tybalt wearily.

  “Lay down your arms, all of you, or I’ll tell my guards to dispose of you,” said Riordan.

  “You’d break Oberon’s Law?” asked Quentin. He sounded wounded, like he couldn’t believe that an otherwise reasonable member of the Daoine Sidhe—his own race—would break the law so cavalierly. I guess dealing with so many crazy people really upped his standards for the sane ones.

  “Oberon’s Law applies only to the places that Oberon is watching,” said Riordan. “Tell me, kiddo, what part of this room is Oberon watching? What part of anywhere is Oberon watching? We’d never have been able to open this door,” she indicated the portal to Annwn with a sweep of her hand, “if he’d been paying attention. Oberon’s gone. He’s not coming back for us. All you people still playing by his rules are backing the wrong horse. It’s the ones who realize the rules have changed who’ll win the race.”

  “Not to be rude or anything, but you’re sort of mixing your metaphors,” I said, as mildly as I could with a dozen semi-visible swords being pointed at my vital organs. I’d survive being stabbed…probably. Quentin and Tybalt wouldn’t.

  “Why do people always say ‘not to be rude’ when they’re about to be rude?” asked Riordan. “Now, are you going to lay down your arms, or are my men going to punch some nice new holes in you?”

  My knife clattered against the receiving room floor. A few seconds later, Quentin’s sword did the same. Tybalt had no weapons to discard, but he raised his hands, showing that his claws were securely sheathed.

  Riordan smiled. “Good,” she said. As quickly it had come, the smile faded, replaced by a look of cold dismissiveness. “Boys, take them.”

  The Folletti closed in. Tybalt snarled. And something hard hit me on the back of the head, and everything went black.

  TWENTY-TWO

  I WOKE WITH MY HANDS TIED behind my back and my ankles tied together, lying on my side in a tangled bed of fresh-cut bracken. That, and the sweet, clean smell of the air coming through the window in the stone wall behind me, told me plainly that we were no longer in Riordan’s knowe. We were no longer anywhere in the Summerlands at all. There was no light in the room.

  “Tybalt?” I whispered. I didn’t move while I waited for my eyes to adjust. “Quentin?”

  Silence. I squirmed in the bracken until I could lever myself into a sitting position, making as little noise as I could in the process. Once I was upright, I opened my mouth enough to “taste” the air, breathing deep and searching for signs of the Folletti. There were none. There were no signs of Cait Sidhe or Daoine Sidhe, either. For the moment at least, I was alone. The room was small and round, making me suspect that it was some sort of tower. The walls were made of rough, unfinished stone.

  “Fairy tale cliché anyone?” I muttered, and looked down at myself, taking stock. I had my shoes, which was nice. Actually, I had all my clothes, including my leather jacket. At least I wasn’t going to freeze while I was tied up in Riordan’s stupid tower. I tugged my wrists apart, testing the cord that bound them. It was rough and scratchy against my skin, like twine. It wasn’t quite tight enough to cut off the circulation, but it came close. I could work with that.

  If anyone had been watching what came next, I’m sure they wouldn’t have been able to observe what followed without laughing so hard they gave themselves away. I half-scooted, half-tumbled my way across the room, nearly landing on my face several times before I managed to reach the wall. Once I was there I twisted until my shoulders were pressed flat, with my hands pinned between my back and the stone. And then, gritting my teeth against the pain I knew was coming, I began scraping my wrists up and down the wall.

  The thing about tying someone with rope or twine is that it’s an innately fragile sort of bondage. Rope can be cut. Twine can be frayed. But if you do it right, most people, won’t be able to achieve these things without hurting themselves—and most people aren’t interested in hurting themselves when they don’t have to. I’m not a fan of hurting myself. I’ve just learned that sometimes it’s the only way.

  My skin started giving way before the rope did, the smell of my blood seeping into the air to mingle with the scent of the bracken. I hate the sight of blood, but the smell of it strengthens me, even when it’s my own. It’s just one more annoying side effect of my increasingly inhuman biology. Still gritting my teeth—against actual pain now, not the promise of pain that might be coming—I pressed my back into the stone and sawed harder. The hardest part was forcing myself to keep sawing when the stone finished wearing through the skin at the base of my wrists. I could feel my flesh shredding. I could also feel the twine shredding. I kept going.

  The first strand of twine snapped just when I was starting to think I’d have to stop and throw up from the pain. I tugged experimentally, and the remaining twine drew tight, giving me something new to saw against. I took a shaky breath, bit my lip, and went back to work.

  The fact that I can bounce back from almost any injury that doesn’t kill me is usually an asset. At times like this, when I would have once needed to worry about permanently damaging my hands, it’s a godsend. There’s just one problem: I heal supernaturally fast, but pain still hurts. Normally, if you hurt yourself enough, and keep hurting yourself, your nerves will give you up as a lost cause, and you’ll stop hurting. Not optimal, but better than the alternative.

  I, on the other hand, was already starting to heal. There was an itching underneath the agony that meant the cuts I’d made were beginning to knit themselves closed, flesh and muscle regenerating. And I was still sawing, which meant I was reopening those wounds faster than they could close, and the pain never got any duller
. Blacking out was starting to sound like a great idea when the twine finally snapped.

  I yanked my hands apart, ignoring the way the remains of the twine dug into my wounds, and bent forward to brace my palms against the floor, lean to the side, and puke. I stayed in that position for a while, dry-heaving and waiting for the pain to subside enough to let me sit up.

  Eventually, my head cleared, and I pushed myself upright. The worst of the damage to my wrists was gone, although my hands were sticky with blood. I peeled away the last loops of twine with shaking fingers, wadding it up and throwing it into the bracken. The room was dark enough that the blood on my hands was just blackness, like spilled ink.

  It’s just ink, I told myself firmly and wiped my fingers on what was soon to be yet another ruined pair of jeans.

  It says something about Faerie’s sense of humor that the daughter of the best blood-worker in Faerie can’t stand the sight of her own blood. At least the effort of wiping the blood off distracted me from the vague itch of my wrists healing themselves.

  Once the pain was gone and my hands weren’t quite so sticky, I bent forward and untied the twine around my ankles. The knots were tight, but not so tight I couldn’t unpick them with my fingers. Carefully avoiding the puddle of puke to my side, I braced one hand against the blood-dampened wall, and stood. My head spun one last time as I adjusted to being upright. Then everything settled, and I was loose, relatively uninjured…and entirely unarmed.

  “Crap,” I said, and scrubbed at my eyes with the back of my hands. The movement caused my jacket to shift, and something in my pocket went “clink.”

  I dropped my hands.

  When Duchess Riordan’s guards knocked me out and took me away, they’d confiscated my knife, but they hadn’t searched my pockets for less obvious dangers. I still had the Luidaeg’s Chelsea-chaser, which was currently glowing neutral starlight pale. And I had both the power dampener and its counteragent tucked into their respective pockets. Which meant that Quentin and Tybalt, wherever they were, probably also had theirs. Things were looking up.