Ashes of Honor

TWENTY-FIVE

I’M NOT SURE WHICH was more surprising: that I woke up in the white velvet room off Duchess Riordan’s entry hall or that I woke up at all. I blinked up at the ceiling, realizing a moment later that the light levels had changed. The globes of floating witchlight were gone, replaced by a portable array of modern-looking fluorescent lights. “What the—?”

“She’s awake!” I recognized Jin’s voice before she leaned into my field of vision, scowling down at me. “By which I mean, of course, ‘She’s miraculously not dead, again,’ since by all rights, you should be. Oberon must really love your dumb ass.”

“Jin?” I levered myself into a sitting position, blinking at her. We were alone in the room, but only on a technicality; I could see faces peeking around the edges of the doorframe behind her. Tybalt, Quentin—and May, of all people. “What’s going on?”

“You nearly died. Again. I put you back together. Again. Oh, and you owe Tybalt and May so many favors I can’t even put it into words, since he’s the one who made sure we both got here, and she’s the one who donated three pints of blood to your sorry ass.” Jin folded her arms and scowled at me, her wings vibrating into a hazy blur behind her. “Congratulations, you’ve figured out where your crazy healing powers stop working. You should be dead.”

“You already said that.” My mouth tasted like road kill. I licked my lips, which tasted like blood—not much of an improvement, all things considered.

“I intend to keep saying it until you start to listen. You. Should. Be. Dead.” Jin looked over her shoulder, calling, “She’s awake, and there’s nothing I can do to make her less stupid. You can come in now.”

Tybalt was the first into the room, with Quentin close on his heels. I expected May to be right behind them. I was wrong. Instead, Li Qin sauntered in, an In-and-Out Burger takeout bag dangling from one hand. She held it up while Tybalt and Quentin bent to crush me from either side in an exuberant hug and asked, “Hungry?”

As if on cue, I was suddenly starving. “Yes,” I said, sitting up farther and freeing one arm to reach for the bag. “What are you doing here? Where did these lights come from?”

“Ah. You see, the regent of Dreamer’s Glass has disappeared under mysterious circumstances, and the nobles she shares a border with were concerned, especially since she left no named heir. So Tamed Lightning decided to occupy her fiefdom. Just in case people get ideas they shouldn’t.” Li Qin’s smile was surprisingly predatory as she gave me the bag. “Naturally, if she fails to return, we’ll be claiming the regency. It’s only fair, considering we’ll be expending resources in her defense.”

“And the lights…?” I opened the bag, grabbed the first burger, unwrapped it, and crammed about a quarter of it into my mouth. Calories. Thank Maeve.

“Home Depot, with one of April’s Summerlands-compatible batteries powering them.” Li Qin’s smile died as quickly as it had come. That was good. It had been starting to creep me out. “We have a problem.”

I swallowed. “Don’t we always? What is it this time?”

“Chelsea,” said Tybalt, pulling away from me. His voice was grim. I looked toward him. He met my eyes, shaking his head. “She’s still bouncing, and she’s speeding up. Etienne is following her, and she’s managed to stay out of Annwn so far, but I don’t know how long he can keep up—and I don’t know what’s going to happen when he loses her.”

I winced. “Oh, Oberon’s eyes. Did you try catching them?”

“In between running for your doctor and your Fetch? Yes.” A humorless smile crossed Tybalt’s face. “I once thought myself a King of infinite space. It seems a Tuatha in panicked pursuit of his daughter can put a girdle ’round the earth in forty minutes.”

“Okay, points for the Shakespeare references, but you lose some for mixing your plays.” I pushed Quentin gently away and levered myself to my feet, noting the way my head spun as I stood. That was a combination of vertigo and needing to eat more of the burgers Li Qin had so thoughtfully provided. “We need to find them. We need to stop her before she damages something we can’t repair.”

“How are you planning to do that?” asked May. “I mean, they were moving pretty fast the last time we saw them. It’s not like you’ll have time to string a net.”

“It’s not like we’re going to need to.” I took another bite of burger, swallowing it without really tasting it before I said, “Chelsea herself said that she kept cycling back to places she’d already been, like she couldn’t help opening those doors over and over. Riordan was using blood magic. I have the charm she was using. We can get Chelsea to come here.”

“How are you going to stop her?” asked May.

I stuck my free hand into the pocket of my leather jacket—now in need of a serious cleaning—and produced the baggie holding Walther’s jar of power-dampening solution. “I’m going to hit her with a guaranteed stop sign. And then I’m going to give her the Changeling’s Choice, whether she wants to take it or not.”

May’s eyes widened. Then her expression softened, with a mixture of sorrow and understanding. “Toby, I’m sorry.”

She wasn’t sorry because I had to give the Choice to Chelsea. She was sorry because the only other person I’d given the Choice to was my own daughter…and Gillian Chose human. I shook my head. “We knew this was coming. I just hope I’m up to it. Tybalt, Quentin, I want you with me in case something goes wrong.”

“I’m coming, too,” said May. I raised an eyebrow. She shrugged. “I am indestructible. You just think you are. I figure I’ll jump in front of the next thing that tries to rip your guts out.”

“You’ll need me to bend the luck,” said Li. “Successfully using someone else’s blood charm is unlikely under the best of circumstances. Without me, you won’t have the best of circumstances.”

I gave her a sidelong look. “There’s something you aren’t telling us about how your magic works. Otherwise, why would anything ever go wrong for the people around you?” Why would your wife have died?

Li Qin hesitated before admitting, in a smaller voice, “There may be a reason you’ve had quite so many life-threatening injuries since we met.”

“And here I thought she was finally living up to her potential,” said Quentin.

“I have the power to ground you, you know,” I said. He grinned at me. I shook my head and focused on Li Qin. “So the luck you bend, you have to take it from somewhere? And that means what, that we wind up with little pockets of bad luck waiting for us?”

“Sometimes the bad hits before the good, but yes, essentially,” said Li Qin.

I only had to think about what she was saying for a second. “Works for me,” I said. “Come on, all of you. And Li—this is the last time I want you twisting our luck around, okay? We get Chelsea home, and then you let us take our chances with normal probability.”

“Absolutely,” said Li Qin, looking relieved.

“Great. Let’s go.”

We walked down the dimly lit halls of Riordan’s knowe in silence, me too busy cramming burgers into my mouth to say anything, and the others holding their peace for reasons of their own. Tybalt paced next to me, eyes fixed forward. I gave him a sidelong glance and reached over to take his hand. He shot me a startled look. I smiled. After a moment, he smiled back.

Riordan’s throne room looked like the scene of a war. In a way, I suppose it was. The tapestries had been ripped from the walls by a strong wind, and there were charred spots on the walls. A patch of the marble floor looked like it had been bleached white. I paused, reaching down to touch the stone, and yelped as I lost a layer of skin to the freezing chill.

“She’s hitting the Snow Kingdoms, too,” I said, straightening up. “On the plus side, we know she’s cycling through here.”

“Accompanied by lava flow, blizzards, and Maeve knows what else,” said Tybalt dryly. “Oh, yes, this is a definite plus.”

“I’m taking my good things where I can get them right now,” I said, and I stuck my frostbitten hand into the In-and-Out bag to grab the last burger. The spinning feeling in my head was almost gone. “Quentin, May, I want you on the other side of the room. Li, take the floor in front of the throne. Tybalt and I will wait here.”

May frowned. “And you’re splitting the party Scooby Doo-style exactly why?”

“Because when Chelsea comes through here, we need to be ready to tackle her and pin her down long enough for one of us to douse her in power dampener. Quentin has a dose; so do I. Tybalt can cross the distance to Li Qin if he needs to—”

“—but my luck manipulation means that wherever I’m standing in the room is where Chelsea is least likely to appear, which is why I’m by myself,” said Li. She glanced at me. “Am I close?”

“Yeah, but you’re also standing by yourself because I’m annoyed at you for getting me disemboweled. Twice. I’d managed to go my whole life without having someone stick their hands inside me, and I was planning to keep it that way.”

Li Qin smiled lopsidedly. “You only got hurt because I helped so much.”

“That’s why I’m annoyed, not homicidally enraged. Does anybody else want to argue with me right now?”

“I always want to argue with you,” said May, and grabbed Quentin’s arm. “Come on, kiddo. Let’s get out of the blast radius.” Quentin laughed, letting himself be dragged away. With an amused snort, Li Qin turned and walked to the spot I’d assigned her.

As soon as the last bite of burger was crammed into my mouth and swallowed, I dug Riordan’s ruby out of my pocket. I dropped it on the floor and stomped on it. It shattered with a satisfying “crunch.” The smell of blood—Chelsea’s blood—filled the air. I couldn’t use someone else’s blood charm, but I could use the blood itself. “Come back,” I murmured, fixing the image of Chelsea in my mind. “Come back, and be free.”

After that, there was nothing we could do but wait. I was out of burgers, so I started finger-combing my hair, wincing every time I hit a snarl. Tybalt raised an eyebrow. “I thought I was the one who was meant to indulge in self-grooming in public.”

“I’m nervous.” I sighed, letting my hands drop. “When Chelsea gets here…”

“You’ll do what must be done.”

“No matter what she chooses, she’s losing one of her parents. She’s only just met Etienne.”

“The decision is hers, October.” Tybalt placed a hand on my shoulder. “Changelings Choose because they must belong to one world or the other. You can grant her the gift of truly belonging in the world that she chooses. View it as a blessing, not a burden. I’ve seen too many changelings die for lack of someone like you.”

I sighed again, leaning into his hand. “Who gave you permission to know me this well?”

“Believe it or not, little fish…you did.”

I was mulling that over when the smell of calla lilies and sycamore smoke started to suffuse the room. I stiffened. “Everybody get ready!”

The words were barely out of my mouth when a hole opened in the middle of the ceiling and Chelsea tumbled out, like a lost Alice plummeting into Wonderland. She made a small, wounded sound when she hit the marble, scrambling almost immediately to her feet. Her eyes widened when she saw us.

“Stay back!” she shouted. “You have to stay back! I don’t know when I’m going to jump again!”

A second hole opened next to the first, and Etienne dropped through. Unlike his daughter, he landed on his feet. Both were dirty, with scorch marks on their clothing. Etienne was missing a shoe and looked like he was on the verge of collapse. Chelsea looked even worse.

There was no way I could get to them in time. But I didn’t need to. Pulling the jar of power dampener out of my pocket, I yanked off the baggie and shouted, “Etienne! Think fast!” He looked up just as I threw it at him as hard as I could. His eyes widened, and he snatched the jar out of the air.

Tybalt grabbed my arm. “The plan—”

“I don’t want you touching that stuff. No shapeshifters, remember?”

Across the room, Etienne was struggling with the lid of the jar. Passage through searing cold and magical portals seemed to have done an excellent job of tightening it; he was a trained knight, and the lid wasn’t even budging.

“Daddy!” wailed Chelsea. The air around her was starting to glitter again.

Etienne swore loudly enough for me to hear him, and he stepped closer to Chelsea before flinging the jar at the floor. It exploded, showering glass and power-dampening potion in all directions—including on Chelsea and her father. The glitter in the air died as the solution hit Chelsea’s skin. She stared at Etienne.

“What did you do? How did you stop me?”

He didn’t say anything. He just reached out, gathered her into his arms, and hugged his daughter for the first time.

I waited long enough for them to finish their embrace before starting toward them, stopping well outside the splash radius from the broken jar. “All better?”

Etienne looked up, raw gratitude painting his face. “Yes. Thank you, October. I don’t know how I can ever repay you.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” I said, holding up my hand. The gratitude in his expression died, replaced by broken-hearted understanding. “There’s still something I have to do.”

“I understand.” He let go of Chelsea. “Do what must be done.”

Chelsea looked up at him, confusion and betrayal in her eyes. “Daddy?”

It was amazing, and a little bit heartbreaking, how fast Etienne had become “Daddy” to her. She must have wondered all her life about the man who’d provided the genes that made her not quite human. I just hoped I wasn’t about to take her away from him forever.

“It’s all right, Chelsea. You need to go to October. She’ll make everything better.”

“I’ll try, anyway,” I said, and forced what I hoped would look like a sincere smile. “Hi, Chelsea. Can you come over here?” I paused before adding, “Wipe your hands really, really dry first, okay? I need to hold them, and it’s sort of important we not get any of that goo on me.”

“Is the goo why I stopped jumping?” I nodded. She smiled shyly. “Okay.” Chelsea started toward me, rubbing her hands against the seat of her pants as she approached. When she reached me, she held them out, showing me that they were dry.

“Good.” I took one hand, drawing my knife with the other. Her eyes widened, but she didn’t pull away. “I need to ask you a question, and I need you to give me an honest answer. It’s important. You have to answer for you, and not for your parents—either one of them. Can you do that here, or do you want to go somewhere private?”

Chelsea glanced back at Etienne, who was watching us with a silent, burning intensity. She turned back to me. “I can answer.”

“Okay. Chelsea, when you think about yourself, your place in the world…do you think of yourself as human? Or do you think of yourself as fae?”

It seemed like the whole room held its breath, waiting for Chelsea to answer. I know I wasn’t breathing. No matter how she answered, what I was going to do to her would hurt. I’d done it to my own daughter, but Gillian was unconscious at the time; she didn’t understand the source of the pain. Chelsea would understand. She’d know I was the one doing this horrible thing to her. I didn’t know her well enough to know whether she’d be able to forgive me.

Chelsea frowned, looking down toward her feet. A drop of the power dampener was on the toe of her shoe, glistening slickly. “When I was little, all I wanted was to be normal, so Mom wouldn’t have to spend all her time worrying about me,” she said slowly. “All the other kids got to have sleepovers and do sports, and I had to pretend I wanted to grow up to be Mr. Spock or one of Tolkien’s elves.”

“I bet you made a great Arwen at Halloween,” I said.

“Yeah.” She glanced up at me, smiling—a quick, shy thing that died just as fast. “But I’m not human, am I? I’ve never been human. All the wishing in the world can’t make me human.”

All the wishing in the world can’t, but I can, I thought. Aloud, I said only, “So what are you? Human, or fae?”

“Does it have to be one or the other?” Chelsea looked at me hopefully, eyes searching my face for an answer. My silence must have been answer enough. Chelsea sighed. “I’m fae. I wanted to be human, but I’m not. I wouldn’t know how to start. I’m me, and being me means being fae.”

“Okay.” I took a breath, not sure how to say what needed to be said. Finally, I settled for just coming out with it: “Chelsea, right now, you’re dangerous. The way you’ve been jumping isn’t normal for Tuatha de Dannan like you and your father. It’s because you’re half-human. Usually, being half-human means you’re less powerful. Sometimes it means the opposite. Sometimes it means you get all the power in the world and nothing to help you control it.”

Chelsea frowned. “So how do we fix that?”

Here it was. “I take the human out of you.”

“You can do that?” Her eyes widened. “Can you put it back if I change my mind?”

“No. Once it’s done, it’s done forever, but you won’t be dangerous anymore. You’ll be able to learn to control your powers. You’ll have a normal life.” A life that would last for centuries, if not millennia.

Chelsea bit her lip. Then, marginally, she nodded.

I didn’t let myself look up. I didn’t want to see the look on Etienne’s face as I turned her hand so that her palm was facing toward the ceiling and ran the edge of my blade—clean, thanks to someone’s efforts while I was asleep, and keen-edged enough to slice through skin without a hitch—across the center of it. Blood welled up immediately, scenting the air with its presence.

I repeated the process with my own hand before sheathing my knife again. Raising my hand to my lips, I got a mouthful of blood. Then I bent, and pressed my mouth against the cut on Chelsea’s hand in a parody of a kiss.

My magic rose around us in a heavy cloud, the smell of copper all but overwhelming the smell of fresh-cut grass. There was a momentary pause as Chelsea’s body tried to figure out what happening.

Then Chelsea screamed like she was being murdered and tried to jerk her hand away.

Etienne was abruptly there, holding her in place. “No, Chelsea, shh, it’s all right, honey, you have to be still. Let October work. It will be over soon. Let her work.”

Chelsea screamed again. I did my best to shut her out and focus on what I was doing: reaching for the tangled threads of humanity that wound through her and pulling them free, one by one. I patched the holes with Tuatha de Dannan, expanding the other part of her heritage until it was all she had. She was still screaming, her voice growing hoarse, and I was getting lost in the dark tangles of her self, the places where human and fae collided and made her something unique in all of Faerie.

Somewhere in her was the answer to what made some changelings too powerful to live; the key to that strange, unavoidable quirk of biology. But I didn’t know what to look for, and so I wiped it away, along with everything else that made her human. I wiped it all away.

When I straightened up, Chelsea was slumped against her father, unconscious. I hadn’t even noticed when she stopped screaming. The world around me spun. What I’d done with Gillian hadn’t taken half as much power. She’d been less than a quarter fae. Chelsea, on the other hand, was the real deal, half and half. I felt like something had been ripped out of me in the process of changing her.

“Thank you,” whispered Etienne.

“Any…time…” I said, through numb lips. Then I fell backward and was only distantly aware of Tybalt’s arms coming up to catch me as the darkness closed in again.

I woke up back in the white velvet room. Li Qin was gone, as were Quentin and May. In their place were Etienne, kneeling next to the couch where Chelsea was sprawled, and Sylvester, standing off to one side and watching the scene with an unreadable expression on his face. Only Tybalt remained the same. His leg was the pillow my head was resting on.

Sylvester smiled a little when my eyes opened. “Welcome back to the land of the living, my dear. In more ways than one.”

“Annwn is not a good tourist destination. Just an FYI.” I struggled to sit up. Tybalt put a hand under my back, supporting me. “When did you get here?”

“About an hour ago. Your King of Cats thought I might want to be here and came to fetch me.” Sylvester seemed amused by this.

I considered telling him Tybalt wasn’t my King of Cats but decided it wasn’t worth the fight—and besides, that might not be true anymore. Instead, I focused on the important question. “How’s Chelsea?”

“Asleep while she recovers. Jin has been in and out since you both blacked out. It’s impressive, the language she uses when she feels that you’ve been risking your life needlessly.” Sylvester’s smile died. “Why didn’t you call?”

“Etienne asked me not to.”

“Since when does he command you? You could have died.”

“I didn’t.”

“Don’t split hairs with me, October.”

“I gave him my word. He was worried about his daughter. He didn’t mean to get me hurt.” I bit my lip. “Please don’t be mad.”

“I can’t help being angry and disappointed. And yet…” Sylvester looked toward Etienne. To his credit, Etienne raised his head and met his liege’s eyes without flinching. “I suppose I would have done the same in his position, and he’s been more than suitably chastened. Still, I will miss his talents for the next year or so.”

“The next—oh, oak and ash.” I grimaced. “The power dampener.”

“In the chaos, no one thought to use the antidote,” said Etienne. His voice was calm. “What is a year, compared to a daughter? A price gladly paid.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Etienne reached over and brushed a lock of Chelsea’s hair away from her face. Her cheekbones were more pronounced than they’d been before, and her ears were more pointed. The color of her hair hadn’t changed, but I was willing to bet she wouldn’t be able to hide her eyes behind tinted glasses anymore. “I’ve gained more than I could have dreamed.”

“About that…” I took a breath. “Bridget still knows about Faerie. You’re going to have to deal with her. And the fact that she really did lose her daughter when you came back into her life. There’s no way Chelsea’s going back to the mortal world now.”

“I know.” Etienne looked up. “Will you come with me? She knows you.”

“If by ‘knows’ you mean ‘tried to hit me with a frying pan,’ sure.” I leaned back into the couch, closing my eyes. “But I am going to need a lot of coffee before you can convince me to go anywhere.”