Ashes of Honor od-6 Page 5

  Bridget had raised her daughter knowing that she wasn’t wholly mortal. Chelsea would have her fae nature woven throughout her memories. It might be too closely tied to her identity for even the Luidaeg to remove, no matter how much I changed her blood. If Chelsea chose human, there was a good chance she’d have to die. And either way, there was the matter of Bridget, who was mortal and aware of Faerie. Something would have to be done.

  For a moment, Etienne simply sat there. Then he took a shaky breath and stood. “The Choice has always been given,” he said. “I have broken enough rules. It is unfair to expect that this rule, too, would be violated for my pleasure.”

  “There’s a chance—” I began, then stopped, realizing what his expression meant. Sylvester never told him. Etienne wasn’t there when Gillian had her Choice; he knew I had a mostly mortal daughter, but that wasn’t the same as knowing she’d Chosen, or knowing she’d been changed. He still thought of the Changeling’s Choice as an absolute, one that ended with either death or temporary exile from the mortal world.

  “A chance?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Never mind.” I shook my head. Chelsea’s situation wasn’t like anyone else’s that I knew of…and it was kinder not to tell him. “There’s a chance she’ll choose Faerie, that’s all.”

  “And lose her mother—assuming Bridget can be allowed to live freely after what I’ve done to her.” Etienne sighed. “I’ve lived my life by Faerie’s laws. I’ve served even when I wondered whether service was truly the only path open to me. But I’ve never before questioned this strongly whether those laws were fair.”

  “Yeah, well. The humans call us ‘the Fair Folk’ because they’re trying to make us act that way. Not because we already do.” I raked my hair back with one hand. “Is there anything else I need to know before I start moving on this?”

  “You know everything I do.” Etienne took a step back. He didn’t look away. “I’ll have your first payment sent over in the morning, as soon as the banks are open.”

  I briefly considered explaining the concept of the ATM to him but decided against it. Quentin once spent most of an afternoon trying to explain “online banking” to me, and I walked away with a headache and the sincere urge to send mankind back to the Stone Age. As long as Etienne knew how to make a withdrawal, I was happy. “All right. I’ll call if I find anything.”

  “Yes. I suppose you will.” Etienne glanced over his shoulder to the door. “I understand that this is terribly cowardly of me, but would you mind very much if I were to—?”

  Understanding dawned. “You can go ahead and teleport out,” I said. “I’ll explain things to the others. We’re going to find her, Etienne. You have my word.” I wasn’t going to promise him we’d find her alive—I try to be optimistic, but that doesn’t make me an idiot. He looked relieved, all the same.

  “I haven’t always been a good friend to you, October, and I regret that,” he said, tone grave. “I’ll never forget that you were willing to do this for me. Believe that.”

  “I do,” I said.

  Etienne bowed. Then he turned away, using one hand to transcribe a wide arch in the air. A glowing circle appeared in front of him as the smell of limes and cedar smoke filled the room. I could see one of the halls at Shadowed Hills through the circle; a faint hint of rose perfume came wafting through, making an odd counterpart to the scent of Etienne’s magic. Then he stepped into the portal, and it closed behind him.

  “I need more coffee,” I said loudly, and walked to the office door. “Now I’m opening the door.” I grasped the knob, counted to three, and pulled.

  As expected, Tybalt was standing in the hall.

  “Feeling subtle tonight, are we?” I asked, brushing past him on my way to the stairs. “How long were you standing there?”

  “Long enough,” he said, turning to follow me. “Is this going to be an issue?”

  “No. I knew one of you would be listening and that it wouldn’t be May; she’s the loudest. Tactically, keeping her downstairs is the right thing to do.” I glanced back at him as I walked down the stairs. “You could have brought me a fresh cup of coffee, you know.”

  “May thought the smell would betray my presence.”

  “May was probably right,” I said, reaching the bottom of the stairs.

  “May usually is.” May stepped out of the kitchen, holding out a fresh mug. “Peace offering?”

  “Accepted.” I exchanged my empty mug for her full one, taking a long drink of scalding coffee before I shouted, “Quentin! Wherever you are, stop being there, and get in here!”

  “That bad?” asked May.

  “Perhaps worse,” said Tybalt. I raised an eyebrow in his direction. He shook his head. “I’m not being flippant, October. As I said before, I heard enough.”

  “That’s good. Can I assume you’re still here because you’re willing to help with this?”

  “You can.”

  May looked between us. “Is this the part where I start freaking out?”

  “If you think it would help,” I said. Quentin emerged from the kitchen with Spike—the household’s resident rose goblin, a sort of animate cat-shaped rosebush with an unfortunate tendency to jump on my lap without warning—riding on his shoulder. I saluted the pair of them with my coffee mug. “Great, we’re all here. Follow me.”

  I led the way to the living room, where I put my mug down atop the pile of papers that obscured our coffee table and turned to face the others.

  “Here’s the short form,” I said. “Etienne had a relationship with a human woman while Luna and Rayseline were missing. It ended when his duties at Shadowed Hills became too pressing. He hasn’t seen her since then. Unfortunately, what he didn’t know was that Bridget was pregnant when they broke up.”

  “Etienne has a changeling?” asked Quentin, tone both amazed and horrified.

  “Yeah,” I said, looking at him levelly. “Is there a problem with that?”

  Quentin started to reply. Then he stopped, took a deep breath, and said, “I don’t know.”

  He looked utterly ashamed of himself, which said a lot about how far he’d come since we met. Quentin started out as your average pureblood, convinced that he was innately superior to the changelings and just as convinced that there was nothing wrong with that. I’d started slapping that attitude out of him almost immediately, and it had worked, sometimes surprisingly well—for a little while, he’d even had a human girlfriend. They didn’t have a happy ending. People who play faerie bride so rarely do.

  “Her name is Chelsea,” I said. “There’s nothing wrong with the fact that she exists, but there’s something very wrong with the fact that up until today, Etienne didn’t know about it.”

  Tybalt nodded; he’d already heard this much. Quentin gaped at me, shame melting into surprise. It was May who spoke, exclaiming, “WHAT?!”

  “He didn’t know she existed. He hasn’t been monitoring her. And her mother teaches Folklore at UC Berkeley.”

  Now it was Tybalt’s turn to stare at me. He’d apparently missed that part. “He was fool enough to court a folklorist?” he asked. “Did he wish to be the one to betray Faerie’s existence to the mortals?”

  “I doubt he thought about it. People usually don’t when they’re in love.” I raked a hand through my hair again, this time pressing my fingers against the base of my skull. It wouldn’t stop the night I was having from giving me a headache, but it made me feel a little better. “Chelsea’s mother knows she’s not human. We can’t change that, although we’ll probably have to deal with it before this is over.”

  “Wait—you mean that’s not the problem?” asked May. “Because call me naïve, but that sure sounds like the problem to me.”

  “It’s a problem, but it’s not the main problem.” I pulled my hand out of my hair, picking up my coffee cup. “Chelsea is missing. She disappeared earlier today, in full view of her mortal friends. They said she ‘just vanished.’”

  “Sounds like she figured out h
ow to teleport,” said May.

  “Or someone figured out she existed and thought she’d be a great way of getting at Etienne,” I said. “Maybe I’m being paranoid, but after the last few years, I figure I’ve earned a little paranoia.”

  “What do we do now?” asked Quentin.

  It was a simple question. It still made me smile, just a little. The situation was bad, and it was going to get worse before it was over…but I was part of a “we” now. Once upon a time, not that long ago, I would have been trying to do this on my own, even if there were people willing to help. I hadn’t learned to be part of the “we.” I hadn’t realized how much I needed it.

  “We have to find her, and we have to find her fast. I’m going to call Walther and ask him to talk to Bridget, as a fellow faculty member. Tybalt—”

  “If you ask that I leave, you will be sorely disappointed by my answer, and I will be even more disappointed by you,” he said, with unexpected sharpness.

  I blinked. “I wasn’t going to ask you to leave. Can you ask your cats to watch for anything out of the ordinary, like an appearing-disappearing Tuatha teenager bopping around the city? We need to figure out where she’s been, so we can get the scent of her magic and start tracking her.”

  “Of course,” said Tybalt, not looking entirely mollified.

  “What about me?” asked May.

  “I’m going to want you to stay here and coordinate things.”

  My former Fetch frowned. “There has to be more I can do than just that.”

  “I’m sure there will be. For the moment, though, I need someone at the house to answer the phone, answer the door, and keep everyone posted.”

  “Okay.” May sighed. “Jazz and I can take shifts. She can take over after the sun rises.”

  “That works,” I said, and took a gulp of coffee. “I’m going to call Walther, and then Quentin and I will head for Chelsea’s house and see whether we can find her high school. Maybe we’ll get lucky and there will be a nice big sign. ‘Chelsea Ames was abducted by…’”

  “Wouldn’t that be a pleasant change from the norm?” asked Tybalt dryly.

  “I’ll get my coat,” said Quentin, and trotted out of the room, heading for the stairs.

  “Okay.” I waited until I heard his footsteps on the stairs before looking from May to Tybalt. “You know how this is going to end.”

  “I do,” said Tybalt softly. Even if Chelsea died, Etienne could be accused of treason for betraying the truth of Faerie’s existence. And if she lived…if she lived, life as she knew it was going to be over, one way or the other.

  Nothing is ever simple or easy when Faerie meets the mortal world. There are just times when I find myself wishing it didn’t have to be quite so hard.

  FIVE

  I WENT INTO THE KITCHEN to call Walther. I carry a cell phone these days—May and Quentin’s nagging wore me down—but I use landlines when I can. It feels more secure. April O’Leary insists the opposite is true, but April isn’t objective, since no one’s ever going to listen to one of her calls when she doesn’t want them to. Being able to control the phone lines has made her a little cocky.

  Tybalt followed me. “As we are once again in a state of emergency, I assume we will not be discussing this evening’s events,” he said, without preamble. His tone was stiff, a sure sign that he was unhappy.

  When did I start caring about his moods? “I don’t see what there is to talk about,” I said, taking the phone off the hook. “I appreciate you helping us look for Chelsea. I know Etienne isn’t a friend of yours, but we really need the help.”

  “I have no quarrel with him,” said Tybalt, stiffness becoming sharpness. “October—”

  “I need to call Walther.” I focused on the phone, dialing Walther’s office. Tybalt sighed, making no effort to conceal his irritation. I ignored him. Not the most mature approach to the problem, but it had been working so far. Why mess with a good thing?

  Most members of the UC Berkeley faculty ended their office hours around six or seven, when the bulk of the student body was heading off-campus for dinner or back to their dorm rooms to pretend they remembered how to study. Not Walther. His on-duty hours started when everyone else was ending theirs, and he could usually be found in his lab late into the night, mixing chemicals with names I couldn’t pronounce for the pleasure of seeing whether or not the result would explode. Explosions seemed to occur more often than not.

  “Professor Davies’ lab, Professor Davies’ mortally endangered graduate student speaking.” Jack sounded harried. That was nothing new. Jack usually sounded harried when Walther was playing with hazardous materials. The rest of the time, Jack sounded like someone had slipped sedatives into his mocha. To be honest, I suspected Walther of doing just that.

  “Hi, Jack, it’s Toby. Is Walther in? I need to ask him something.”

  “Toby!” Jack’s delight was unfeigned. “Are you calling because you’re going to take the Professor away for a little while? Because you would not be inconveniencing me in the least. In fact, I would probably be willing to pay you. Actually, take out the ‘probably.’ I’m supposed to have these papers graded by tomorrow, and he keeps making the lab smell like rotten eggs.”

  “So why are you doing the grading in the lab at two o’clock in the morning?” I asked, curious despite my own better judgment.

  “I share an apartment with three other grad students,” said Jack matter-of-factly. “It smells worse than the lab does. Would you like me to get the Professor for you?”

  “Please,” I said.

  “Just a second.” There was a scuffling sound as he put the phone down and moved away. I glanced up to find Tybalt watching me with a mixture of curiosity and irritation.

  “Walther’s graduate student, Jack,” I explained. “He’s getting Walther for me.”

  “How charming. Tell me, is he also in a position to get you a measure of common sense? I would gladly reimburse him.”

  I glowered and was about to demand to know what his problem was when Walther asked, “Toby?”

  “Walther, hey.” I turned away from Tybalt. “Are you alone?”

  “From any other woman, I would assume that question was connected to my social life. From you…” Walther laughed. “Yes, I’m alone. I’ve sent Jack to get us something to drink.”

  “What are you going to do when he graduates?”

  “Find someone new to get my coffee. What do you need?”

  I took a deep breath, unsure how to begin. Finally, I took the chicken’s route and asked, “Do you know Bridget Ames in the Folklore Department?”

  “Sure,” said Walther. “She’s a nice lady. Single mother. Her students like her. Never yells at me for accidentally triggering the fire alarm.”

  “How often does that happen?” I asked.

  “Often enough that I may never get tenure.”

  “Right.” I took another deep breath. This wasn’t going to get easier. “Have you met Bridget’s daughter, Chelsea?”

  “I haven’t had the pleasure.” Walther’s tone turned suspicious. “Why are you asking?”

  “She disappeared on her way home from school this afternoon. Quentin and I are about to go walk her route, see if we can find something that might tell us where she is.”

  “I didn’t know you knew Bridget.”

  “I don’t. I’ve never met her.”

  “Then who hired you?”

  “Chelsea’s father.”

  There was a moment of silence as Walther thought about that. Finally, he asked, “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “Her father is Etienne from Shadowed Hills. She’s a changeling, Walther. Bridget knows, and she’s managed to keep her hidden from us. And now she’s missing.”

  Walther swore loudly in Welsh before demanding, “How did this happen? How was this missed?”

  “Etienne likes smart girls who know how to hide their kids from the faeries, I guess. Walther, she’s missing, and we need to find her. Is there any way you c
an talk to Bridget, one faculty member to another, and see if you can get us a picture of Chelsea?”

  “Chelsea’s disappearance—you don’t think it was a normal kidnapping, do you?”

  “When a teenage Tuatha changeling disappears in broad daylight? No, I don’t. Her friends told Bridget that’s what happened—Chelsea just disappeared. If we’re lucky, she finally hit the epiphany that unlocked her magic, and she teleported somewhere without knowing how to get back.”

  “If we’re not lucky?”

  “Then Etienne’s teenage daughter has been stolen by persons unknown, and I have no idea why. You’ll talk to Bridget?”

  “I will.”

  “Good. Call me if you learn anything. Open roads, Walther.”

  “Open roads,” he echoed, sounding far more subdued than he had at the beginning of the call, and hung up.

  I replaced the receiver in the cradle and turned to find Tybalt watching me. “What?” I asked.

  “Are you sure this isn’t a matter better left to your liege?”

  The question startled me. I’d been expecting another request to talk about what happened in the alley. We’d have to talk about it eventually, since it was clear that Tybalt wasn’t going to let the matter drop until we did, but I wasn’t ready. “Etienne asked for my help.”

  “It’s true that retrieval of lost things—children, kittens, trinkets—has become a specialty of yours. But are you sure you’re prepared for this particular mission?”

  “Tybalt…”

  He sighed. “I don’t want to make you angry. I merely fear for your safety.”

  “I can do my job.”

  “Really. You can follow a teenage changeling, stolen from her mortal parent, kept from her fae parent, and feel no personal connection that might cloud your judgment?”

  I took a sharp breath, forcing myself to count to ten. Finally, when I was sure I could speak without screaming, I said, “This is nothing like what happened with Gillian.”

  “Isn’t it?” Tybalt asked. I wanted to read his tone as mocking, needling me about what happened when Gillian was taken. I couldn’t do it. Maybe I’d have been able to do it once, but now, after all we’d been through—after all the times he’d been there when I needed him—I couldn’t see his words as anything but what they were: concerned.