Chimes at Midnight

TWENTY-ONE

THE PASSAGE THROUGH ARDEN’S PORTAL was surprisingly easy, especially when compared to my recent trips through the Shadow Roads. One second, we were in the basement at Borderlands, and the next, we were standing amidst the riotous explosion of carefully overgrown flowers that was my backyard.

Arden frowned at the house. “I recognize this neighborhood.”

“We’re pretty close to the bookstore; you should feel right at home. Dolores Park is right over there.” I started up the path to the back door, grimacing as I walked. It seemed like I was stepping on every possible pebble and twig the yard had to offer, and my bare feet didn’t appreciate the experience. “I should warn you, I have roommates, and they’re a little . . . well, unique.”

“I live in a basement with my comatose brother, and one of my best friends thinks a good afternoon is spent chasing Frisbees around the dog park,” said Arden. “How unique can they be?”

“Just keep thinking that, okay?” I said, and unlocked the door, stepping into the kitchen. “May! Jazz! I’m home, and I brought company!”

“Toby!” May came hurtling into the kitchen, still holding the remote control in one hand. She ignored both Arden and the open door as she flung her arms around me, pulling me into a hug that was tighter than my lungs approved of. “You’re okay! Jazz said she didn’t see you when the flock mobbed the intersection, I was so worried, don’t do that to . . . me . . .” Her voice trailed off as she finally noticed Arden. “You meant actual company.”

“I did,” I said, and disentangled myself from May’s arms. “May, this is Arden. Arden, this is my housemate, May.”

“You must be Toby’s sister,” said Arden, shutting the front door.

“I’m her Fetch, actually,” said May, staring at Arden. “I . . . forgive me. You look a lot like someone I used to know.”

“Fetch?” said Arden, looking horrified.

“It’s a long story, and she’s not a death omen anymore,” I said. “May’s retired.” May also had the memories of every face she’d ever worn back when she was a night-haunt. The odds that she’d eaten someone who knew King Gilad were more than reasonably high, given how many fae died in the 1906 earthquake. I elbowed her before she could say anything. “Is Jazz here? I wanted to let her know how much I appreciated the assist.”

“Um, yeah, she’s here, but she had to go back to bed,” said May, shaking off whatever memory she’d been trying not to share. “Diurnal, remember?”

“I remember.” I started toward the dining room, gesturing for Arden to follow. “We’re just here to pick up supplies—and you—and then we have to get moving. The Queen has Arden’s brother. We need to get him back.”

“Oh,” said May, blinking. “Well. That’s not good. I’m happy to be picked up, I guess. There’s nothing on TV right now anyway. Where are your shoes?”

“Alcatraz.”

May looked at me blankly.

“Arden took them there when we realized the Queen was using them to track me. Remember how she didn’t turn my sneakers into high heels? She turned them into tracking devices instead. Remind me never to assume that she’s doing anything without an ulterior motive.” I paused at the base of the stairs. “Arden, there’s stuff for sandwiches in the fridge, if you want one. May, Danny and Quentin are behind me.”

“Make sandwiches, got it,” she said. Hooking her arm through Arden’s, she said, “You can help,” and hauled the startled-looking Princess back into the kitchen. I shook my head fondly. Then I turned and walked up the stairs to my room. I needed shoes, and jeans that didn’t have gaping holes where the knees used to be.

More than that, I needed weapons.

I used to carry two knives everywhere I went. I still carried the silver one, but I’d been forced to put the iron knife away after Mom shifted the balance of my blood to turn me more fae than human. Well, I was almost human now. That had to come with a few advantages.

The bedroom door was closed. I opened it, reaching inside and fumbling for the light switch. I never found it. Instead, hands grabbed my wrists and hauled me forward, into the darkness. I had time to squeak before a mouth was clamped over mine, and I was being kissed with ruthless firmness. The hands released my wrists, going to my waist, pulling me closer. I didn’t fight; my brief panic had passed as quickly as it had come. I couldn’t taste his magic—my senses were wrapped in cotton by the change in my blood—but a man can’t kiss you as many times as Tybalt had kissed me without becoming familiar.

I slid my hands up his arms to his shoulders, and then into his hair, allowing myself a few precious seconds of melting into his arms. Tybalt pulled back first, his eyes glittering green in the light that bled through from the hall. “Welcome home,” he said, voice rough.

“Hi,” I said, barely above a whisper. I pulled my hands out of his hair, resting them on his shoulders. He didn’t let go of my waist. “Have you been here long?”

“I arrived seconds before you did,” he said. “I was going to ask May to phone you when I heard your voice from downstairs.” He kissed me again, more softly. Then he stopped, nostrils flaring. “I smell blood. Are you hurt?”

“It’s nothing major. I fell down while I was running away from the Queen’s guards on Valencia,” I said. “I need new jeans and some Neosporin, and then I’ll be as good as new. Did you find Mom?”

“Don’t evade. Are you aware that ‘when I was running away from the Queen’s guards’ is not a reassuring statement?”

“Who’s evading?” I held up my skinned palms, showing him the damage. “I used to hurt myself worse than this falling off the playground swings. I’m fine. But if we want this sort of thing to not be a problem, we need to get me back to normal, and that means finding Mom. Did you have any luck?”

“Her tower gates were closed.” He sounded defeated. His shoulders slumped. “I circled, but there was no entry to be found. I called for every cat in the Summerlands who would answer me, and some who would not. None of them had seen her. Your mother has vanished, October, and I know not to where.”

“Then we stick with Plan A. We get Arden on the throne, we get access to the treasury, and we hope chest the extra human right out of me.” I pulled away from him, turning to flip the light switch.

Tybalt caught my wrist. I turned to blink at him.

“What?”

“Would you return yourself to your former state if it weren’t for the goblin fruit?” he asked. “I remember a time when this was what you wanted.”

“Would you leave me if I still wanted that? If I still wanted to be human?”

Tybalt laughed a little, shaking his head. “No. But you would eventually ask me to. I am . . . not sure . . . I could stop myself from wanting to protect you. I want to protect you anyway, but normally you can do that on your own. Now . . .”

“I wanted to be human once,” I admitted. “I wanted to sleep at night, and age like the people I saw on the street, and not have to worry about being carried off by a Kelpie just because it was hungry and I was in the wrong place to stay out of its way. I mean, the Kelpies would have still been there, I just wouldn’t have known, but . . . that’s not the point. People change. I changed. I have a life in Faerie. I’m not giving it up for anything, and definitely not because of something as stupid as getting hit with a pie.” My stomach clenched again. I winced. “Okay. You need to let go of me now.”

“October? What’s wrong?”

“Seriously, let me go.” Tybalt released my arm. I dug the baggie of blood gems Walther had made out of my pocket and popped two of them into my mouth. It barely took the edge off. I didn’t care. That was going to have to be enough, because I would need to be in way worse straits before I took another piece of the Luidaeg’s blood.

“Toby?”

I raised a finger, closing my eyes as I waited for the snarling in my stomach to subside. Tybalt was watching me with open anxiety when I opened them again. I sighed. “Better, for now. We need to move. Are you sticking with us?”

“Unless you have another fool’s errand for me to undertake,” he said.

“The only fool’s errand I have left is deposing a Queen, installing a Princess in her place, and fixing my,” I waved a hand to indicate my too-human body, “little problem.” I started for the dresser where I kept my iron knife, safely muffled in a bundle of yarrow branches and silk.

“Have you considered that curing your addiction may result in humanity no longer being an option for you?”

The question was mild. I stiffened but didn’t turn as I opened the drawer and started moving sweaters aside. “I did.”

“And?”

“And I’d rather not give up my humanity—not yet—but if that’s what has to happen, then that’s what I’ll do.” I untied the cord that held the silk in place and began unrolling the bundle across the top of the dresser. “If I come away from this completely fae, then so be it.”

“Ah.” Tybalt packed an amazing amount of relief into that single syllable.

The last of the silk came away, revealing my iron knife in all its menacing simplicity. There was nothing splendid about it: it wasn’t ornate or decorative. It was just a piece of metal, designed for killing the fae. And it was very, very good at its job.

“What, you thought you’d get rid of me that easily?” I slid the iron blade into place in the holster around my waist, relaxing a little. Using iron against the fae isn’t something to be done lightly. Iron dulls magic and causes iron poisoning, which can be fatal. It’s the sort of thing you only do when you have to. But if the Queen’s guard came for me again, they wouldn’t find me quite so helpless. “Sweetheart, you’re stuck with me until you decide not to be.”

“At this point, if your foul attitude and utter lack of manners were going to drive me away, they would have done so already.”

“There, you see? Nothing to worry about.” I stripped off my ripped, bloody jeans and pulled a clean pair out of the dresser, stepping into them without bothering to bandage my knees. They weren’t bleeding anymore, and at this point, a little pain could only focus me. I was either going to get back to normal or die before infection could set in.

“October, if there is one thing I have learned over the course of my association with you, it is that there is always the potential for something else to worry about.”

“Flattery will get you everywhere.” My jeans were looser than they would have been even a day ago. My poor metabolism had to be working double-time as it tried to keep me going on a diet of adrenaline, blood, and misery. “Throw me my shoes. We’ve got a Queen to overthrow, and that means we need to get this show on the road.”

Tybalt smiled as he bent and grabbed a pair of sneakers from the floor beside the bed. He lobbed them to me one at a time, and smiled more as I caught them. Catching the shoes stung my scraped palms, but I didn’t allow myself to show it. The last thing I wanted was to worry him more after I had just sent him away.

Voices drifted through the open door. I looked back over my shoulder as I pulled my sneakers on and quickly laced them. “Sounds like Quentin and Danny are here.”

“Ah, yes,” he said dryly. “The cavalry.”

“Stand behind the man made of stone, don’t get shot, remember?” I stepped in and gave him one more kiss before grabbing the first aid kit off the dresser. “Come on. Let’s go.”

“As you like,” he said, and followed me out of the room and down the stairs, to where the dining room was increasingly coming to resemble a surrealist dinner party. Danny was standing in the doorway, where he was less likely to accidentally break anything. May was setting out a platter of sandwiches; Quentin already had one in either hand and was eating like he was afraid he’d never be fed again. Which was a reasonable concern, given the way things had been going for the past few days.

“Everybody grab what you’re going to want, and grab it to go,” I said, stepping into the room. “Tybalt, that means you, too. You need to eat something.”

“Hey, Tybalt,” said Quentin, waving a sandwich.

“Hello, all,” said Tybalt. He took a sandwich before offering Arden a shallow bow. “Milady.”

Arden frowned. “Hello, King of Cats. Have you come to join this fool’s parade, or are you just here to make snide comments before disappearing again?”

“Ah,” said Tybalt. “I have so missed people making assumptions about my intentions since my fair October learned I was an ally. We shall have to keep you. You’ll provide some much-needed unpleasantness.”

“At least that’s one thing I can be sure will never change,” said Arden. “No matter how much time I spend in or out of Faerie, Cait Sidhe will always be annoying.” She turned to me. “You said you had a plan. What is it? Or was it just ‘feed me sandwiches.’” Her frown faltered. “I admit, I don’t really see what sort of benefit you’d be getting from the sandwiches, but . . .”

“The sandwiches are a side benefit,” I said. “You should eat, if you haven’t already. But the plan . . . your father’s knowe was in Muir Woods, wasn’t it?”

Arden blinked. “How did you know that? The knowe was sealed after his death.”

“I’ve been there, or at least, I’ve been to the part that’s still accessible. It’s a shallowing now.”

“It’s sleeping,” she said. “Father said it would wait for us forever.”

“And there you go,” I said. “We take you to Muir Woods. You reopen the knowe—you reopen King Gilad’s knowe, lost to us for over a hundred years—and you send out letters to announce that you are the rightful Queen of the Mists.” Pixies make a surprisingly good messenger service when bribed, and Muir Woods was swarming with them.

Everyone stared at me like I had lost my mind. Everyone but Quentin, who just nodded, looking thoughtful.

“In the Mists,” said Arden, without varying her expression at all.

I smirked.

“Are you insane?” asked May.

“She’s insane,” said Danny.

“The Queen will have to attack immediately or risk granting legitimacy to the challenge,” said Quentin. “She won’t even have to wait three days. That kind of treason warrants immediate response, if there’s any chance that people will take it seriously.”

I nodded. “Exactly. And reopening the lost knowe of King Gilad is the sort of thing people are going to take pretty damn seriously.”

“What good does it do me to get myself killed?” asked Arden. “I don’t have an army!”

“You have the Undersea. You’ll have as many men as Sylvester can provide.”

“How is this helping me get my brother back?”

“I’ve been in the Queen’s dungeons before.” I looked to Tybalt. “Iron isn’t really a problem for me right now. So a little jailbreak shouldn’t be that big a deal.”

He blinked as the full scope of what I was asking hit him. “You want to break into the Queen’s knowe. October. Have you lost your mind?”

“You know it’s a good plan when it gets everyone to ask if I’m crazy,” I said amiably. “No, I have not lost my mind. The Queen will have to answer Arden’s challenge with as much force as she can muster, and she’s not going to be expecting anyone to be dishonorable enough to make a sneak attack.”

“There’s nothing dishonorable about taking back someone who shouldn’t have been taken in the first place,” snapped Arden.

“That’s my opinion, too.”

“Uh, not to sound dense here, but how does this fix anythin’?” asked Danny. “Sure, you get the missing dude back, but Arden here is still under attack by Queen Crazy-cakes and her big-ass army, and we’re all gettin’ banished or killed. I’m not really seeing this as a win.”

“We don’t have to win. We just have to hold off her forces long enough to contact a higher authority. Getting Nolan out of her knowe is mostly to make sure she won’t do anything vindictive and stupid when she realizes that the tide has turned against her.” I looked toward Quentin. He met my eyes levelly. “She’s held this throne because she was unchallenged, and because no one higher up than she was ever had the excuse to say, ‘No, that is not yours.’”

“Arden’s claim is good, and supported by the Library,” said Quentin. “I’m sure King Sollys will hear your petition.”

“Swell. Do you think you could relay that to him, then, preferably before the Queen of the Mists decides to kill us all?”

Quentin smiled crookedly, while May and Tybalt looked at me in bewilderment. “I can do that.”

“Good. Because you’re going to be staying here.”

His eyes widened. “What?”

“You heard me. Someone needs to stay here and make sure the Queen doesn’t send people to attack the house. Jazz is asleep. I’d rather she not be ambushed. And we’re going to need May to put on some of my clothes, cast an illusion to turn her hair brown, and go with Arden. We need them visibly standing together, both to draw fire—”

“Gee, thanks,” said May.

“—and because people will assume that May is me.” I looked around the little group. “This is a risky plan. It’s complicated and it’s convoluted and it’s entirely outside of my primary skill set. And it’s the only one I have that stands a chance of working. If any of you have something better, now would be the time to bring it up.”

No one said anything.

I nodded. “Okay. If any of you doesn’t want to be a part of this, now would be the time to leave.”

“Pass,” said May.

“No way,” said Danny.

“I’d love to, but I’m the only one that offer doesn’t apply to,” said Arden.

Tybalt didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to.

“I want to make a change,” said Quentin.

I raised an eyebrow. “What’s that?”

“Instead of staying here—and I mean, I get why you want me to stay here; somebody has to stay with Jazz, and you probably want me to be as far away from actually breaking the law as possible right now—why don’t Jazz and I go to the Library of Stars and hole up there? I can call Raj. He can take us, and we won’t ever have to go outside.” Quentin shrugged. “It won’t stop the Queen if she decides she wants to burn the house down, but we couldn’t stop her if we were here. I’m not Elliot. I can’t create big waves just because I want them.”

“And the Library is neutral ground,” I said thoughtfully. “Even if the Queen wants to cause problems for you there, she can’t. All Mags has to do is refuse to let her into the stacks. Okay. We’ll go with that. And, uh, bring donuts or something to apologize to Mags for my exploiting my Library pass.”

“Will do,” said Quentin.

May looked relieved. “I guess I can take a few headshots for the cause if Jazz will be safely out of the line of fire.”

Arden looked confused. I glanced at her, explaining, “May is literally indestructible. As near as we can tell, she can’t die now that she’s no longer connected to me.”

“Oh,” said Arden.

It was time for the part that wasn’t going to go over so well. I turned to Tybalt, and took a deep breath. “Tybalt . . .”

“Ah.” His eyes narrowed. “This is where you once again ask me to leave you for someone else to defend, and trust that I will do it simply because you claim that it is necessary. Really, October. I thought this time, perhaps, your endless assurances that you weren’t going to send me away might last a little longer.”

“I’m not sending you away. I want us to end up in the same place, because I need you to go break Nolan out with me. I just need you to do something else, first.” I tucked my hair back behind one ear, trying to ignore the snarling from my stomach. “I need you to go and ask the cats for help.”

He blinked. “You what? October, the Court of Cats cannot fight—”

“No, they can’t. This is a matter of succession for the Divided Courts, and it would be completely inappropriate for the Court of Cats to get involved. But if they happened to be hanging out in Muir Woods before hostilities were formally declared, and accidentally served as an early warning system . . .”

Tybalt blinked, and then smiled, although his pupils remained hairline-thin. “You have gotten trickier. It suits you. I am not happy about this request, but I can see the wisdom in it, much as I might wish not to. I will ask them.”

“And since you’re the King of Cats, that means they’ll do it, right?”

He snorted. “So long in my company, and yet you still know so little of the feline mind. Some will cooperate. Others will find better things to do with their time.”

“Fair enough.” Even partial cooperation would give us the manpower we needed to make this work out. Of course, there was one other stumbling block to be overcome . . . “Someone needs to explain what’s going on to Sylvester.”

Now Tybalt’s eyes widened. “You cannot be serious.”

“I am.” I could have called. Sylvester would have listened. But I didn’t want them fighting any longer than was absolutely necessary—and more, sending Tybalt would impress on Sylvester just how important this really was.

“He kept me from you.”

“And now he can pay back a little of the debt he incurred to me in doing that. He can come and fight beside us. Please.”

Tybalt simply stared at me for a long moment. Then he stepped closer. “You were less trouble before I told you that I loved you.” This said, he bowed his head, and kissed me, long and slow and sweet. Despite the fact that we were surrounded by people, I kissed him back.

When he pulled away, he sighed. “Where shall I meet you?”

“Come to Muir Woods,” I said. “I’m going to go there with Arden and the others to get the knowe open. Once that’s done, it’ll be time for you and me to hit the Queen’s dungeons.”

“Ah,” he said. “The simple pleasures.” He turned to Arden, offering another shallow bow. “Highness,” he said. “May you have the best of luck in claiming the throne you once refused. I know it is a difficult choice to make. I hope you will have as many joys in your place as I have had in mine.” He pivoted on his heel, walking out of the dining room.

I turned back to the others, pulling my jacket a little tighter as I said, “All right, then: we know what we’re doing, we know where we’re going, and we know this isn’t going to be much fun. I’m going to call Goldengreen before we leave here. May, go wake Jazz. Quentin, go call Raj. Arden, eat a sandwich. You’re going to need it. Danny . . .”

“I know how to get to Muir Woods,” he rumbled, folding his arms. “I’m drivin’.”

I smiled a little. “Yeah, you’re driving.” May and Quentin had already vanished into other parts of the house, leaving me and Danny alone with Arden. I turned to her. “You okay?”

“I can’t decide whether you’re a genius, an idiot, or one of those people who’s only happy when she’s making everything up as she goes along,” said Arden. She paused before adding, “And I’m starting to believe we can pull this off. It’s . . . a little bit weird.”

“Welcome to life with Tobes,” said Danny, clapping her on the back.

Arden stumbled forward a few feet before getting her balance. “She hasn’t killed the rest of you yet, so I guess that’s something,” she said. She looked at me. “Can we swing by the bookstore and pick up Madden? If we’re going to need all hands on deck for this, I want him with me. He’s one of the best men I know, and I’m not leaving him out.”

“Absolutely,” I said. “When it comes to committing treason, the more the merrier.” I pulled my phone out of my pocket. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go call Goldengreen, and then we can leave.”

“We’ll be here,” said Danny.

I made it into the kitchen—and even managed to close the kitchen door—before my stomach clenched so tight that I could no longer stay upright. I grabbed the edge of the counter and hung there, suspended by my white-knuckled fingers, while I waited for the pain to fade.

It seemed to take forever. It could have taken seconds. It was hard to tell. The pain was bad enough to twist my perception of time. I eventually hauled myself back to my feet, shaking, and wiped the sweat from my forehead. I could hear Arden and Danny talking quietly in the dining room. I couldn’t have been incapacitated for too long; they’d have noticed my absence, and come looking for me.

I popped three more of Walther’s blood gems into my mouth as I dialed the number for Goldengreen, slumping against the counter in the process. The bag was almost empty. This had to end soon. One way or another, it had to end soon.

I just hoped and prayed that it was going to end with everyone still standing.

But I no longer quite believed that was possible.