Chimes at Midnight

TWO

THE CAR WAS PARKED behind a convenience store, draped in an illusion to keep it from being borrowed by some enterprising joyrider. May snapped her fingers to release the spell as the four of us approached. None of us spoke, and we held our silence as I unlocked the doors, checked the backseat for unwanted visitors, and slid behind the wheel. My hands were shaking and I was afraid that I was going to run us off the road, but that didn’t matter. May doesn’t drive, largely because no one is willing to get into a car with her anymore. Jazz can fly. Tybalt mostly uses the Shadow Roads to get around. Unless I wanted to call a taxi, I was driving.

Tybalt grimaced as he got into the passenger seat. I didn’t say anything, but I knew how uncomfortable he was, and I appreciated that he was willing to put himself through this for my sake. Faerie: where it’s only a little weird to realize that my boyfriend is older than the internal combustion engine.

We were halfway home before anyone spoke. “What are we going to do?” asked Jazz. “All those kids . . .”

“There was no way we could have known.” The words sounded sincere. It took me a moment to realize they’d come out of my mouth. “The night-haunts were doing their job, and that meant we never had a chance of finding out about those other kids. Not unless someone told us, and nobody knew for sure.” Their names. Sweet Titania, I hadn’t even learned all their names. How was I going to tell their parents if I didn’t know their names?

Thinking like that was just going to drag me down into a never-ending spiral of blame and self-loathing. I couldn’t afford that. Not right now.

May must have known what I was thinking, because she said softly, “I can try to talk to the flock. Maybe I can get their names.”

“That would be good.” I glanced at Tybalt as I turned onto Market Street. “Were any of them yours?”

“Thankfully, no,” he said. “The goblin fruit has not reached my Court as yet. Given time, it will. My control over my subjects is strong, but it is not absolute.”

“Right.” Three months ago, right before we started officially dating, one of Tybalt’s subjects introduced me to my own intestines. That probably wouldn’t have happened if Tybalt had been in control of Samson’s actions at the time. “Okay.”

“They weren’t from the flock, either,” said Jazz. “We’re not missing anyone.”

“Okay,” I repeated. I was learning more and more about whose they weren’t—and it wasn’t helping. The Cait Sidhe and the Raven-maids and Raven-men kept a close eye on their changelings, protecting them the way the larger fae community didn’t. But selling goblin fruit to changelings wasn’t a crime. The Queen of the Mists had to know that it was happening, and she’d never done a thing to stop it.

Everyone quieted after that. None of us really had anything to say. I pulled into the covered two-car parking area next to the large Victorian house that we had on long-term loan from my liege, Duke Sylvester Torquill. May and Jazz got out as soon as the engine stopped, leaving me alone with Tybalt. He waited until their doors were closed before putting his hand on my shoulder and saying, softly, “He was wrong. This is not your fault.”

I kept my hands on the wheel, staring straight ahead through the windshield. “Are you sure about that? Because it feels like my fault.”

“October.”

I didn’t turn.

Tybalt sighed before saying, more firmly, “October.” Reluctantly, I turned to face him. He reached out and touched my cheek. “This is not your fault. That does not mean it is not your responsibility. I know that. So my question now becomes . . . what are we going to do about it?”

“We’re going to stop it.” Once again, the words were out almost before I realized they were coming, and once again, they helped. I nodded, slowly at first, then with growing conviction. “People are dying. The Queen of the Mists will have to do something now.”

“I do not share your conviction on that matter, but I am willing to follow your lead.” He leaned in, fingers still pressed to my cheek, and kissed me.

There was a time when I would have pulled away, feigning displeasure I didn’t really feel. That time ended after I nearly lost him in Annwn, and after he nearly lost me at the hands of Raj’s father, Samson. The phrase “tumultuous courtship” was practically invented for us.

But that’s over now. He kissed me with calm assurance and I responded in kind, taking a brief, sweet comfort in the hint of pennyroyal on his lips. Finally, I pulled away. “Let’s go inside,” I said. “We need to decide what happens next.”

“As milady wishes,” he said, smiling faintly, and opened the car door.

A narrow brick path led from the parking area—it’s not really a garage, since it doesn’t have walls, but it’s private parking in the city of San Francisco, which makes it worth its weight in gold—to the back door of the house, which opened on the kitchen. May and Jazz had left it unlocked when they went inside. I pushed it open, calling, “It’s just us, don’t shoot.”

“Toby!” My name was followed by the sound of a teenage boy vaulting over the back of the living room couch. Quentin appeared in the kitchen doorway a few seconds later, practically vibrating with the need to know what he might have missed. “You’re home.”

“I am,” I said, heading for the coffeemaker on the counter. May, Oberon bless her, had started a fresh pot while I was still out in the car with Tybalt. “Where are May and Jazz?”

“They went straight up to their room. May said you’d tell me what was going on.”

“Of course she did.” My hands were shaking again as I poured myself a cup of coffee. I still forced myself to complete the process before I turned to him and said, “We finally found proof that the goblin fruit problem has gotten bad enough that it’s killing people.”

Quentin’s eyes widened behind the bronze fringe of his hair. I remember a time when that hair was the color of cornsilk, but like many Daoine Sidhe, it had darkened as he aged. “Somebody died?”

“A lot of somebodies died, Quentin.” I could see their faces if I closed my eyes. “We found a dead changeling in an alley, and we waited with her until the night-haunts came. We saw the victims, all of them. There have been at least a dozen. Maybe more.”

“Oh, oak and ash.” He stood a little straighter, unconsciously falling into a formal posture. He was a courtier at Shadowed Hills when we first met, and some habits die hard. “What are we going to do?”

There was something extremely comforting about that “we.” I spent so long without any allies that sometimes I wasn’t sure I knew what to do with the ones I had. “We’re going to take it to the Queen,” I said. “This is her land. She should be doing something to keep her people alive.”

“Um,” said Quentin. “But . . . she hates you.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said dryly. “I appreciate the reminder, though.”

“He has a valid point,” said Tybalt. “Her dislike for you is rather legendary.”

“And she’s still the Queen.” I sighed before taking a gulp of my coffee. “We work with what we have.”

They weren’t exaggerating, sadly. The Queen of the Mists had hated me for years, starting when I refused to pretend I hadn’t been the one to discover what was currently her knowe. Her hatred had just grown stronger, and more irrational, with time. She’d done some complicated political maneuvering to get me convicted of murder not all that long ago. She nearly succeeded in having me executed over that one.

But this was her Kingdom, and Faerie is a feudal society. If I wanted this to happen, we would have to go through the Queen.

“Quentin, go get changed,” I said, topping off my coffee. “I’m going to go find May and Jazz, see if they want to come with us—where’s Raj?”

“He went to Helen’s,” said Quentin, grimacing. “They’re fighting again.”

Helen was Raj’s longtime half-Hob girlfriend. It was sort of a miracle that they were still together, given the circumstances of their meeting, but I wished them luck. Love does best when it has lots of luck to bolster it up. “All right, fine. That means we don’t need to worry about him. I want to leave within the hour, got me?”

“Got you,” said Quentin, and vanished into the hall, sounding more like an elephant than a teenage boy as he galloped toward the stairs.

I followed more sedately, sipping my coffee as I walked. I was almost to the second-floor landing when I heard Tybalt following. I knew he was letting me hear him, and that dissolved what little irritation I might have otherwise felt; by walking loudly enough for me to hear, he was offering me the opportunity to tell him to go away.

Adjusting to the nonverbal oddities of dating a Cait Sidhe has been strange, but rewarding, and in a way, I think I’ve been getting ready for this for years. I looked back over my shoulder as I stopped in front of the door to May and Jazz’s shared room, flashing him a quick smile. “You okay back there?”

“Yes,” he said. “I do believe I am.”

“Good.” I turned back to the door, knocking as I called, “Is everybody decent? I need to talk to you.”

“We’re clothed,” said May, opening the door. I could see Jazz behind her on the bed, pulling her blouse down in a way that implied “clothed” might have been an exaggeration. I didn’t say anything about it. Their sex life is none of my business. “What’s up?”

“I’m about to do something I really, really don’t want to,” I said. “You want to come?”

May pulled a face. “The Queen’s Court? Really? Tonight?”

“I don’t see another way to take care of this, do you? I can’t just sit here and let more changelings die without telling her what’s going on.”

“Okay.” May looked over her shoulder at Jazz, and then back to me. “We’ll be ready when you are.” She shut the door. I blinked, taking a step back.

“I guess they’re coming with us,” I said, and turned toward my own room. Tybalt followed, pacing me down the rest of the hall. I flashed him a small smile and said, “You can come in, but you’ll need to sit on the bed while I get changed.”

“I believe I can manage that,” he said gravely.

“Cool.” I flicked on my bedroom light, handing Tybalt my half-empty coffee mug before starting for the closet, where I kept my relatively small assortment of Court-suitable formal wear. I shrugged out of my leather jacket, hanging it on the closet doorknob. “I’ve been assuming, but I didn’t ask. Are you coming to the Queen’s Court with me?”

“I’d like to,” said Tybalt, following my instructions and sitting down on the bed. “I know your Queen thinks little of me, but as she thinks even less of you, my presence cannot help but improve the situation.”

“If nothing else, it’ll give her something besides me to be pissed off about.” I crossed my arms, scowling at my clothes. Most of the time, when visiting a noble who demanded “proper respect,” I would just have created an illusory dress for myself, weaving it out of dead leaves and butterfly wings and whatever else I had to hand. The Queen of the Mists, unfortunately, didn’t approve of illusions. Whatever I wore was likely to get permanently transformed into something else. Unless I went in assuming she was going to do that. On those occasions, I usually wound up disrespectfully underdressed in front of her entire Court.

“That is admittedly one of my goals,” said Tybalt.

“You’re a smart guy—ha!” I pulled a low-cut silk gown the color of dried blood out of the back of my closet. It was surprisingly simple, given that it was one of the Queen’s designs. It had started out as one of my favorite pairs of jeans. I held it up against myself, checking the fit. “What do you think?”

“I think that, given how often you accessorize yourself with bloodstains, it’s for the best that the color flatters you,” said Tybalt solemnly. He put my coffee down on the bedside table as he leaned back on his hands. “I also think you should wear dresses more often. They make me itch to peel you out of them.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Now isn’t the time, but that’s good to know.” I hung the dress on the back of the door before starting toward the master bathroom, trusting Tybalt to follow. I shed clothing as I went, letting the pieces lie where they fell. “I really don’t want to see the Queen.”

“I know.”

“But I can’t handle this on my own, and I can’t go to Sylvester when this isn’t his demesne. I have to find out whether she’s willing to put her dislike of me aside and deal with something that’s a real threat to this Kingdom.” I bent to turn on the shower.

“I know that too, and I love you for it.” Tybalt’s hand landed on my shoulder. I straightened, turning to face him. It didn’t matter that I was naked and he wasn’t; he didn’t need to be naked to make my knees go weak, especially when he was smiling at me like I was all that mattered in the world. Still smiling, he leaned forward and kissed me.

I’ll never get used to kissing Tybalt. More, I’ll never get used to being allowed to kiss Tybalt, to it being a normal part of my life that I’m not supposed to think twice about. I leaned into him, reveling in the heat of his skin and the sweetly musky pennyroyal taste of his lips. He put a hand on my upper arm, pulling me toward him, and I raised my own hand to touch his cheek, letting my eyes close. This was real; this was really happening.

This was why I had to see the Queen. Because for my life to be a calm enough place to allow for moments like this one, I needed her to be doing her goddamn job. I couldn’t take care of the goblin fruit problem without her.

“Love you, too,” I murmured, as he pulled away from me.

I opened my eyes to the sight of Tybalt’s smile. “I’ll never tire of hearing you say that.” He let go of my arm. “Please allow me to help with the laces on your gown when you’re ready.”

“Gladly.” The moment over, I stepped into the shower, pulling the curtain closed between us.

I showered quickly—something that wouldn’t have been possible if Tybalt hadn’t gone back into the bedroom; I was angry and worried, not dead—and dried my hair with a towel as I walked back to meet him. He had the dress unlaced and ready to lower over my head.

It fit like it had been made for me, which technically, it had been. Tybalt laced me into it, pulling the bodice so tight that I couldn’t have concealed anything in my cleavage if I’d wanted to. I squeaked in protest, and he kissed the side of my neck before giving the laces one last tug and saying, “If you appear to have suffered in the name of fashion, she will respect you all the more for your efforts. You are stunning. Now you only need to do something with your hair, and you’ll be the prettiest potential accuser at the ball.”

“I feel like a giant Barbie.”

“I do not become romantically involved with plastic people,” said Tybalt dryly.

“That makes me feel much better.” I turned to kiss him, planting both hands flat on his chest to keep the gesture from turning into anything more involved. “Can you get my ankle sheath? It’s on the dresser.”

“Certainly.” As he turned to find it, he asked, “Have you considered how to make your entrance without soaking your skirts?”

The entrance to the Queen’s knowe required us to pass through a frequently semi-flooded cave. My gown was floor-length. “Maeve’s tits,” I swore. “I’m going to get drenched. Again.”

“Not necessarily.” He smiled as he turned to offer my sheath. “The Queen of the Mists is required by treaty to allow the Court of Cats entry through the Shadow Roads. I believe it would cement me as the target of her frustrations if I were kind enough to allow you to shortcut her watery pranks for the evening.”

I blinked, and then grinned. “You’re brilliant. Can Quentin pass through the shadows too, or does he have to wade?”

“I believe I can transport you both a short distance.” He sighed as he watched me strap on the sheath. “You’re intending to drive to the beach, aren’t you?”

“I’m not comfortable when I haven’t got my car. Besides, you said yourself that you could transport us both a short distance. We’re close to the Queen’s knowe, but we’re not that close.” I grabbed a hairbrush off the dresser, beginning to brush the snarls out of my wet hair. It was slow going. As I worked, I offered, “You could meet us there, if you’d rather?”

Tybalt paused before sighing again. “I think that might be best, since I’m sure whatever misadventure we’re about to embark on will require me to spend more time in that damnable contraption. I should save my tolerance for a time when there won’t be a better choice.”

“That seems wise.” I pulled my hair into a ponytail.

He winced. “Please tell me you’re going to let May do something else with your hair. Something that is not that.”

“What?” I lowered my hands, blinking at him. “You said I should put my hair up.”

“October, in formal settings, there is a world of difference between putting one’s hair up and preparing to go for a run. You have accomplished the latter. You need to accomplish the former if you’re trying not to insult the Queen.”

“I usually just leave my hair down,” I grumbled.

“And you usually manage to insult the Queen in short order. Let’s try this without stacking the deck against you, shall we?” He folded his arms. “Please? For me?”

“You know, everyone warned me that getting into a serious relationship would change me, but I thought they meant my habits, not my hair.” I turned toward the door, stopping when I realized that Tybalt was openly staring at me. “What? What did I say?”

“You think this is a serious relationship?” he asked.

Sudden panic flooded over me. I forced it down, trying to focus on his tone of voice. He’d sounded surprised, not upset. “Yes?” I ventured.

To my immense relief, Tybalt smiled. “Good. So do I.”

“Okay, well, that’s one heart attack out of the way for tonight.” I grabbed my leather jacket from the closet door. “I’ll let May do my hair, since you insist. I’m keeping my sneakers. The gown will hide them until we get there, and I always feel better knowing I can run if I have to.” They’d be high heels as soon as the Queen worked her magic, but that was a problem for later.

Tybalt chuckled. “If things go so badly at Court that you have to run, little fish, then I assure you, footwear will be the least of your concerns.”

I shook my head at him and led the way out of the room, clutching my jacket against my chest. Maybe this was it; maybe she would listen, and stop the goblin fruit from spreading any further. Maybe it’d all be all right after we visited the Queen.

Maybe, but probably not. Unable to shake the feeling that I was somehow heading for my own execution, I walked down the stairs, and into the inevitable.