Late Eclipses

TWENTY-TWO

I WAITED UNTIL QUENTIN AND I were halfway down the hill outside the knowe before saying quietly, “Try to stay out of Raysel’s way. If she’s gunning for me, she may start gunning for you, too—out of spite, if nothing else.”

“Yeah.” He sounded subdued. The poor kid was practically worn through. If we survived this, I was going to take him to Great America and make him ride roller coasters until one of us threw up. Never doubt the restorative powers of a good amusement park. “I think she’s probably going to try.”

“If she accuses you of anything, run for my mother’s tower. It will know you from Jan’s funeral, but nobody else who’s not family will make it past the gate.” The dream I’d shared with Karen was still vivid in my mind. I needed to call her. Even if she didn’t know why she sent the dream, she might remember details I’d forgotten.

Quentin cast a sidelong look in my direction. “I still can’t come with you?”

“She’d add kidnapping to the list of charges, and I need you here so you can get Connor out, too. I don’t trust her not to hurt him.” He didn’t love her. With the way she was acting, that might be enough of an insult to let her justify punishing him for his insolence.

“You’re probably right,” Quentin said glumly. “What are you going to do?”

“It’s too soon to go back to the university—having me show up asking Walther for results will just distract him.” He hadn’t had time to get used to the way things speed up when people start trying to kill me. Hopefully, he’d live long enough to learn. “I guess I’ll head for Golden Gate Park, bring Tybalt up to speed on what’s been going on. After that—”

Quentin’s pocket started ringing.

He shot me an apologetic look as he pulled out his phone and flipped it open. “Hello?” He stiffened. “Oh.” Lowering the phone, he turned to me. “It’s for you.”

“What?” I plucked the tiny plastic oblong from his hand, bringing it to my ear. “Toby here.”

“Toby, you have to come home. You have to come home right now.”

May sounded panicked enough that it took a moment for me to recognize her voice. It felt like my heart froze solid. Putting a hand on Quentin’s shoulder—as much to keep me upright as to reassure him—I asked, carefully, “What’s wrong?”

“It’s Spike. It won’t wake up.”

The frozen feeling in my heart just grew at that statement. With Tybalt’s Court in chaos and Luna still in a comalike state, the last thing I needed was for the poisoning to start following me home. “I’ll be right there.”

“Toby—”

“Call the Luidaeg if it gets worse before I can get home.” She wasn’t willing to help before, but she wouldn’t turn down my Fetch, not when it was Spike. She knew how much the rose goblin meant to me.

I could almost hear May swallow her first response before she said, softly, “Get here fast.” The line went dead.

I took my hand off Quentin’s shoulder, practically shoving the phone back at him. “I have to go. Get inside, and see if you can get Connor somewhere private. Tell him there’s something wrong with Spike. If anything changes—anything, no matter how small it seems—call the apartment and get the hell out of the Duchy. Okay?”

“Promise,” said Quentin, eyes wide. He gave me a quick hug before turning to run back up the hill, beginning the series of gymnastics that would let him into the knowe. I didn’t take the time to watch him. I was already racing toward the parking lot.

I was too stressed and worn down to throw any sort of illusions over the car, but I still drove like no one could see me, risking traffic accidents and speeding tickets as I raced across the Bay and back into San Francisco. All told, I probably set some sort of record. I wasn’t really thinking about that. I parked the car and jumped out without taking time to lock the doors, running up the concrete path to the front door.

The wards were unset but unbroken—May hadn’t had any unexpected company. I was fumbling for my keys when the doorknob turned under my hand and May tugged the door open. Her newly-long hair was skinned back into an untidy ponytail, and Spike was cradled against her chest. Its eyes were closed. It didn’t look like it was breathing.

My own breath caught. “Is it—”

“It’s alive,” she said. Taking my wrist, she tugged me inside, kicking the door closed behind me. “The cats woke me up just before I called you. They wanted to be fed.” A brief, all-too-bleak smile crossed her lips. “No matter how bad the world gets, you still have to feed the cats. I filled all three dishes. Spike didn’t come.”

“Oh, sweet Titania.” I scooped the rose goblin from her arms. It never weighed much, but this was like picking up a dried branch; Spike’s narrow body seemed to weigh nothing at all. “When was the last time you saw Spike awake?”

“I don’t know.” The admission seemed to pain her. “It’s the middle of the goddamn day. We’re lucky I was awake enough to notice at all. I fed it when you dropped us off, but then my hair grew and I got distracted … ”

Spike had been sleeping on the couch the last few times I’d seen it. That was longer than I liked to consider. “Well, was it okay when you got home from the Ball?”

“It was quiet. It didn’t eat much—” She stopped in mid-sentence, staring at me. I stared back, realizing what she was about to say. It was so obvious, once you considered all the factors. “Toby—”

“Spike was fine before the Ball, but it wasn’t fine afterward,” I said. “It was listless. Tired.”

“Wilting,” she said, in a small voice.

“Oh, oak and ash.” I pulled Spike back against my chest. “I’m an idiot.”

Luna Torquill was Blodynbryd, a Dryad of the roses. The rose goblins are her children, created before she changed her face. Their health was probably somehow connected to hers; Faerie likes that sort of small, vicious irony. As for Luna …

Luna was connected to the roses in her fiefdom. The signs were there all along, if I’d just been paying attention . Spike’s listlessness, the way the roses in the knowe died when she got sick—everyone must have assumed that her health was affecting them, but what said the health of the roses couldn’t affect her?

“You’re not an idiot, you didn’t know,” said May. The reassurance rang hollow. I should have stopped to think, not gone haring off after half-leads and possible answers.

My head was throbbing. “It doesn’t matter now. Come on.”

“What?”

“I have to get back to Shadowed Hills, and you’re coming with me.” I shoved Spike into her arms. It chirped softly. “Someone needs to be with Spike.”

“Why can’t I stay here with Spike?” May asked, cradling the rose goblin.

“Because Sylvester should see it, and it might be stronger on home ground.” Spike’s roots ran through Shadowed Hills, just like Luna’s. I wasn’t going to count on anything saving it at this point, but I had to hope.

May sighed. “I should stay with you anyway.” She didn’t need to say why. She was my Fetch. She’d be with me when the end came, whether she wanted to or not.

“You’re right,” I said, touching her shoulder. “You should.” Then I turned away, crossing to the phone as I rummaged through the pocket of my jeans.

“What are you doing?”

“Calling for help.” I balanced the phone between my cheek and shoulder, dialing the number off Walther’s business card with my free hand.

Jack answered. “Professor Davies’ office, Jack Redpath speaking, how can I help you?”

“Jack, hi. This is Toby Daye. Is Walther—I mean, Professor Davies—in?”

“Oh, hi!” He sounded positively gleeful. “He’s in the lab working on that project you gave him. Hang on, I’ll go get him.”

“No problem.” May was staring at me. I put my hand over the receiver, saying, “Walther’s Tylwyth Teg. He’s doing some toxicology work for me.”

“You have weird friends.”

“I know.”

There was a clatter from the phone, and Walther said, “Toby? Are you there?”

“I’m right here, Walther. How are those antitoxins coming?”

“I’ve finished the serum for the Cat’s Court. It needs to mature for about an hour, and then it should be ready. Yours is more complex. I need more time.”

“That’s fine.” I doubted he’d have time to cure me before the end. That didn’t really matter. Rubbing my temple with one hand, I asked, “Did you test the cup?”

“I did.There’s no poison.I found a lot of Phenobarbital—a sedative that probably helped with the whole ‘passing out’ thing—and some salt, but nothing that should have made her seriously ill.”

“Would it make the drink taste bitter?”

“That much Phenobarbital would make sugar taste bitter.”

“Can the antidote for the Cat’s Court travel?”

“There’s no reason why not.”

“Good. I want you to bring it with you, and come meet me at Shadowed Hills.”

“What?” He sounded taken aback; apparently, random women didn’t usually call his lab and ask him to drive to Pleasant Hill. Well, he’d learn.

“I may have some leads on Luna Torquill. Listen.” I outlined the situation with Luna and the roses, giving a quick explanation of Luna’s heritage. This was too important to confuse with polite falsehoods. The only thing I left out was my encounter with the Queen’s guards—there was nothing he could do about it, and he’d find out about my pending arrest soon enough.

Walther was silent when I finished. I paused before asking, “Well? Will you help me?”

“What are we going to do? Why do you need a chemist? They’re not going to let me take blood samples from the Duchess.”

“I don’t want you to take blood samples.” I’d been trying to approach things too linearly; that was my problem the whole time. Faerie isn’t linear. “We’re taking soil samples.”

“Why would we—oh. I see. Yes, that makes sense.”

“Do you know how to get to Paso Nogal Park?”

“Yes.”

“Good; meet us there, in the parking lot. We’re not going into the knowe. Bring whatever you’ll need to get a quick answer on what’s in the dirt.”

“All right. See you soon.”

“Count on it.” I hung up briefly before dialing again. This time, the phone only rang once.

“Hi, Auntie Birdie,” said Karen, skipping the unnecessary “hello.” “I don’t know anything else. I’m sorry. I’ve been trying. I even tried dreaming for the mean girl, to see what she knew, but … ” Her voice faltered. “I don’t like her dreams.”

The mean girl? She had to mean Rayseline. “What did she dream about?”

“Only the dark.”

I winced. Definitely Rayseline. “Okay. If you think of anything else, no matter how small, call May, okay? She’s going to be with me.”

“I will … but you need to be careful. Something’s coming. Someone’s dreaming you a new dream, and whoever it is, I can’t quite see them.” On that encouraging note, she hung up.

“Great,” I muttered, hanging up the phone. “Okay. Come on. Walther’s starting from Berkeley. We need to get moving if we want to beat him to Shadowed Hills.”

“Who’s Walther again?” asked May.

“Tell you in the car.” We crossed the living room together. The sky outside was that ludicrously cheerful blue that seems to haunt California summers. It should have been raining. Considering everything that was going on, the sunshine seemed unfair.

I locked the door, pressing my hand against the wood and reciting, “Ring around the rosies, a pocket full of posies; ashes, ashes, we all fall down.” The wards flared and writhed, becoming a web of thin red lines as the smell of cut grass and copper rose around us. If anyone broke into the apartment, we’d know. A bolt of pain lanced through my temples, making my lingering headache worse. The poison was gaining on me. “Damn,” I muttered.

“What is it?”

So May wasn’t getting my headaches in real-time. That was good to know. “Just the headache. Can I get you to throw a don’t-look-here on the car? We don’t have time to deal with a speeding ticket.”

“Sure.” She gave me a sidelong look. “You’ve been using a lot of magic while you’re driving lately.”

“I’ve been in a hurry,” I said, brushing past her on my way to the parking area.

May followed, silent as I performed my usual check of the backseat and unlocked the doors. She climbed into the passenger seat, shifting Spike into her lap. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it. I’m just concerned.”

“Don’t be. It’s not like my chronic migraine is going to kill us.”

“Right.” She closed her eyes and pressed her hands against the dashboard, reciting, “There’s a man who lives a life of danger. To everyone he meets, he stays a stranger. With every move he makes, another chance he takes.” The smell of cotton candy and ashes filled the car.

“‘Secret Agent Man’?” I asked, amused.

May slumped back in her seat. “Not everyone shares your lousy taste in music.” She wrinkled her nose. “Ugh. Now I have your headache and my own.”

May was pureblooded. If she was starting to get magic-burn, her condition was even more synchronized with mine than I’d thought. That wasn’t good.

“You relax,” I said. “I’ll drive.”

May nodded, slumping in her seat as I started the car. We drove in silence. It was close enough to rush hour that traffic was picking up; once we were on the freeway, most of my attention was taken with avoiding an accident. We made good time, but there were a few points—especially at the freeway interchange on the Oakland side of the Bay Bridge—where I was forced to drop to a crawl or pay the consequences. Going through the Caldecott Tunnel when none of the other drivers could see me is one of the most harrowing things I’ve ever done of my own free will.

There was only one other car in the parking lot when we arrived at Paso Nogal: a battered but serviceable silver Toyota that looked familiar enough to have been made before I wound up in the pond. Walther was standing next to it, attention on the small glass vial in his hand.

I pulled up beside him and killed the engine. He didn’t look up. I glanced to May. “Okay. That’s a good spell.”

Even May looked impressed. “I didn’t realize it was that good.”

“Well, drop it. We need to talk to him.”

“Right.” She clapped her hands, bobbing her head a la Barbara Eden. The spell burst like a soap bubble, leaving us visible to anyone who was looking.

Like Walther. He jumped, nearly dropping the vial as he whipped around to face us. “Toby!”

“It’s me,” I said, sliding out of the car. May followed. I gestured between them, saying, “May, Walther Davies. Walther, May Daye, my—”

“Your roommate. You said. A pleasure to meet you, Ms. Daye.” May looked surprised but pleased as Walther tucked the vial into his pocket, turning his attention back to me. “I only got here a few minutes ago. Did you drive the whole way invisible?”

“Yeah, we did. It’s faster. Sort of.” I took Spike from May, holding it toward Walther. “This is Spike.”

“The rose goblin? Marcia mentioned things might get odd around you.” I gave him a quizzical look. He shrugged. “I asked her to fill me in on what to expect when I started working with you.” Quickly, he added, “You were right; it doesn’t look healthy.”

I decided to let Walther’s digging into my background slide. I would have done the same thing in his shoes. “It was fine until Luna got sick.”

“May I … ?” He reached for the goblin.

“Be my guest.” I passed Spike to him, wincing as I saw how shallowly it was breathing. I wasn’t sure it actually needed to breathe—it was as much plant as animal—but that didn’t mean good things would happen if it stopped. May settled beside me, shifting her weight uneasily from foot to foot. I put a hand on her shoulder, and waited.

Walther cradled Spike against his chest, listening to its breathing before putting a finger on its throat to test its pulse. Finally, he said, “This is a very sick goblin.”

“We know. That’s why I want you to take soil samples here.”

“Because of the connection between the Duchess and the goblins?”

I nodded.

To my surprise, he chuckled grimly as he passed Spike to May. “Faerie never fails to stay interesting, does it?”

“Like a Chinese curse,” I said. “Let’s go find some roses.”

We didn’t have to look for long. The bush was half-dead, its few surviving flowers liberally mottled with brown. I stopped. “Here’s one.”

“Got it.” Walther pulled a spoon out of his pocket and knelt to dig around the roots of the bush. He stopped after only a few seconds, frowning. “That’s not right.”

“What isn’t?” May asked.

“The texture of this soil is all wrong.” He pulled a small jar from his coat pocket, dumping a spoonful of dirt inside. Then he uncapped the vial he’d been studying when we arrived, pouring its pale red contents into the jar. The resulting mixture fizzed and turned clear. Walther’s frown deepened.

“I don’t like that look,” I said. “What’s wrong?”

“There’s no poison here. Something’s still not right.” Walther waved his hand over the jar, muttering in Welsh. The liquid turned gold and started fizzing again.

“He’s weird,” said May. “If he pulls out a Bunsen burner, we’re leaving.”

I bit back a smile. If she was feeling well enough to be snide, we were doing better than I’d thought. “He’s Tylwyth Teg,” I said, like that explained everything.

Apparently it did, because May looked satisfied with that answer. Walther kept chanting as the liquid changed colors, finally settling on a glittering white.

“Ah,” said Walther, and stood.

I raised an eyebrow. “Talk to me. What’s going on?”

“Salt.” He held up the jar for my inspection.

“What do you mean, ‘salt’?” I squinted at the jar like I expected his words to start making sense. “Isn’t there always salt in dirt?”

“A little bit, but plants die if they get too much. This dirt has too much salt. Think of it as dosing a person with a little bit of arsenic at a time. It’s essentially slow murder.” He shook his head. “The only way to get rid of it is to leech it out, and the plant still might die if there’s enough damage.”

“Leech it? How?” I demanded. The implications were sinking in. The damned drink was a red herring; the salt was our real culprit. There could be another poison involved, something to knock her out once she’d been weakened, but poisoning the roses would be enough to incapacitate her.

“The soil needs to be flushed with water and treated with gypsum. Uh, that’s a mineral that pulls salt out of the ground.”

“How fast can we do that?”

“This isn’t something you can just snap your fingers and do. It takes time for the soil to recover, and that doesn’t take into account how long it’ll take the plant to get better.” He shook his head. “I might be able to speed things up, but it won’t be instantaneous. I’m a chemist, not a horticulturist.”

I shrugged. “You’re all we have.”

Walther paused. Then he held his hands out to May. “Give me the goblin.”

She glanced to me. I nodded consent, and she reluctantly handed Spike over. Walther pulled it to his chest, cradling it as he reached into his pocket for another vial.

“If this doesn’t work, there’s nothing else I can do,” he said, not looking up.

“I understand,” I said.

Prying Spike’s jaws open, Walther uncapped the vial and poured its smoky purple contents down the rose goblin’s throat. Spike went limp, and Walther began chanting in rapid Welsh.

May grabbed my arm, hissing, “What’s he doing?”

“Trying to save us.” I put my hand over hers. The air crackled with the scent of yarrow and the cold, bitter tang of ice as Walther’s human disguise started to waver, flickering around him like a bad special effect. That wasn’t a good sign. Everyone has their limits, and I didn’t know where Walther’s were.

I stepped forward, putting my free hand on his shoulder to steady him as his chanting took on a more frantic pace. He flashed me a grateful look, finishing his chant with a string of repeated syllables. The magic shattered, and Walther sagged into my arms.

Spike opened its eyes, making a small, bemused sound.

“Spike!” cried May, rushing to embrace the rose goblin. It chirped and scrambled onto her shoulder, holding itself in place with three paws as it started grooming the fourth.

I was occupied with keeping Walther from knocking us both over. He wasn’t a small man, and he was heavier than he looked. I wound up locking one knee and shoving, supporting him against my shoulder. “You okay in there?”

“I’m fine,” he managed, trying to stand. “Ow. My head.”

“Magic-burn. It’s not pleasant, but you get used to it.” I glanced at Spike. It looked perfectly normal. “What did you do?”

“Something I shouldn’t have?” he said, rubbing his forehead as he managed to get his feet back underneath him. “I’d rather not get used to this, if it’s all the same to you.”

“Seriously, what did you do?” If he’d cured Spike, he might be able to cure Luna.

He must have guessed what I was thinking, because he shook his head, expression grave. “I pulled the salt out of its—sap, blood, whatever—and replaced it with gypsum.”

“So you couldn’t do that for Luna,” I said, letting go of my fragile hope. Even I know that mammals need salt, and even if Luna was part-plant, she was still a mammal.

“It would kill her,” he said. “As it is, I don’t know how long this ‘fix’ will last. The salt’s still in the soil. Your goblin’s probably going to get sick again.”

“If we don’t fix this, you mean,” I said.

“If you don’t fix this, a sick rose goblin is going to be the least of your problems.”

“True enough.” Something rustled in the bushes, and two more thorny heads poked through the leaves. One had electric pink eyes; the other’s eyes were a mossy green. Rose goblins. I smiled. “Looks like your spell was more effective than you thought.”

“That explains my headache,” he said, wincing again.

“Toby gets those all the time,” said May, reaching up to pry a thorn out of her shoulder. Spike chirped, annoyed. “Usually after she does something stupid.”

“I’m not normally this dumb,” he said wryly.

May flashed a smile. “Toby inspires stupidity.”

“Hey!” I protested, not really minding. Walther got dragged into things by Lily’s death, and May was involved as long as I was; if they could relax, even a little, more power to them. “I do not. Walther, are you safe to drive?”

“I should be. I have some aspirin in the car.”

“Good. I want you to head for Golden Gate Park. Find Tybalt; give him the antitoxin and tell him what to do with it. Get things started.”

“Right.” He gave me a sidelong look. “And you?”

“I’m going to send a message to Sylvester. I’ll meet you at the Tea Gardens in a little while.” Assuming I got out of Shadowed Hills alive.

“Your wish is my command,” he said, and smiled, a trace of impish humor showing in the set of his jaw.

“Good. Let’s get moving.” Spike rode on May’s shoulder as we walked back to the parking lot, watching with interest as our train of rose goblins increased. There were more than a dozen of them following us by the time we reached Walther’s car.

“There’s something you don’t see every day,” I commented.

Walther laughed. “Maybe you would if you gardened more.” He opened the car door. I suppressed the urge to tell him to check the backseat. “See you soon?”

“Count on it.” He waved to May, then climbed into the car and drove away.

“He’s nice,” May said, lifting Spike from her shoulder and putting it on the top of my car. “Weird, but nice. And what he did for Spike, I mean, that was really cool.”

“What he did for Luna, too,” I said. “This is the best lead we’ve had in a while.” I glanced toward the top of the hill and frowned.

May followed my gaze, asking, “Is it safe to go in?”

“No, probably not.” I looked away. “I should call. See if I can get Quentin to come out. I just wish … ”

“I know.” May put her hand on my shoulder.

The payphone at the edge of the parking lot rang. I jumped.

May laughed, starting toward it. “It’s just a phone. Relax.”

“May—”

“It’s just a phone.” She picked up the receiver, still half-laughing. “May Daye here.” Then she paused, going quiet.

“May?” I called. “May, are you okay?”

She turned and held the phone toward me, expression uncertain. “It’s for you.”