Chimes at Midnight Page 9

  “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” said Tybalt gravely.

  “And yours,” she said. “I’ve never met a King of Cats before.”

  There was something off about her. I breathed in, trying to catch her heritage, and stopped, blinking. “Wait. What are . . . I mean . . .”

  “You mean to ask what I am, and don’t want to give offense by saying I don’t come across as fae to your blood magic.” She reached around to rub the lump on her back, wincing slightly. “I’m a Puca. You’ve caught me in my street clothes—I was out and about when Li called, and I’ve not had time to change.”

  “Oh!” I said, realization dawning. “I’m sorry.”

  “No need.” She smiled again. “Just come and have some tea while I get changed, and then tell me what you are, and we’ll call it even.”

  “Sure, but we’re also here looking for some information.”

  “Isn’t everyone? Come on.” She waved for us to follow her as she turned and headed into the stacks. Not wanting to get lost again, we hurried after her.

  She led us through the maze, taking turn after turn until we emerged into a space the size of a normal living room, if normal living rooms had walls made of bookshelves. A table, two couches, and several chairs were set up in the center of the space, carefully arranged on a faded rug. “I’ll be right back; make yourselves comfortable, there’s tea and such in the kitchen.” Before we could say anything else she was gone, vanishing between two bookshelves.

  “On the plus side, I don’t think she was offended by my dress,” I said.

  Tybalt snorted.

  Puca are shapeshifters. They have no skill at illusions, but they don’t need it: instead of making themselves look human, they turn into humans, hiding their strangeness under veils of too-solid flesh. Of course, they’re not perfect. There’s always one thing they can’t change, one fae feature that refuses to be hidden. It got a lot of Puca killed, back when humanity still believed in us, and eventually, they faded as a race, nearly becoming extinct.

  “I’ve never met a Puca before,” said Quentin.

  “Great. This night is already educational.” I looked around the little square of furnishings, all of which seemed to be at least fifty years old. “When she gets back, we’ll ask for the books on Kingdom history, and we’ll get started.”

  “Kingdom history, is it?” Mags appeared from between a pair of shelves—not, I noted, the ones she’d disappeared between before. “That’s an interesting topic. The Mists is a young Kingdom, but it’s had its share of troubles.”

  “Yeah, it has,” I said, fighting back the urge to stare.

  She was still wearing the long black skirt, but the tweed sweater was gone, as was the lump. Instead, she had pliant-looking dragonfly wings, two on each side, which trailed down to her knees in a wash of translucent rainbow color. They twitched as she walked, making minute corrections in her balance and leaving a thin haze of red and copper glitter in the air. She didn’t have a pixie problem. She just had herself.

  Mags chuckled as she caught me staring at her wings. “Unlike some of my luckier cousins, who only had to contend with goat’s feet or webbed hands, I was born with a full set of wings. It makes travel by public transportation ever so entertaining.”

  I winced, but it was Quentin who spoke, saying, “Binding your wings like that must hurt.”

  “You get used to it.” She glanced aside, expression briefly grim. “You get used to a lot of things, really.” The grimness was gone when she looked back, replaced by her earlier amiability. “Li Qin doesn’t ask for passes often, and certainly not for such interesting groups of people. You said you were looking for the history of the Kingdom? What part?”

  “We should start with the reign of King Gilad,” I said. “If there’s anything from the later years, that would probably be best.”

  To Mags’ credit, she didn’t bat an eye. “King Gilad, is it? What are you looking for? We have the standard histories, of course, and I know where there are a few of the less common ones, although those sections may be dangerous this time of night; better to wait until sunrise, when things settle down.”

  “See, I’m on a little bit of a time crunch with this research project,” I said, picking my words as carefully as I could. “So if we could start with the easy-to-find and move on to the more obscure ones, that would be good.”

  “Well, you haven’t got a Library card, so you won’t be able to take anything away with you, but if you’re willing to put in the hours, you should be able to find almost anything you need.” Mags walked toward the nearest bookshelf, pulling several volumes down and tucking them under her arm. “I’ll start you with a few biographies, some books of Kingdom history . . .”

  “This is very helpful,” I said, following her.

  She took down another three books, handing them to me. “I wouldn’t have let you come if I wasn’t willing to help. Besides, I was curious.”

  “Curious?”

  “I’ve heard of you—who hasn’t? Toby Daye, Amandine’s daughter, twice-dead and twice a changeling child—it’s fascinating, really. I’m sure we’ll be teaching your history in a hundred years. Maybe you’ll even tell me how you managed it, if I’m helpful enough.”

  “That was easy,” I said, without thinking about it. “Mom is Firstborn. Surprise.”

  Mags stiffened, her wings buzzing a new tattoo. Then she took down another book. “I guess I’ll have to revise her biography, then. But there’s a good way for you to pay your Library fees, if you incur any. We’re always happy to take knowledge in trade.” She took the books from under her arm and added them to the pile I was holding. “This should get you started, and if I can borrow your young men, I’ll let them carry the rest back to you.”

  “. . . right.” I looked at the sheer number of books in my hands and managed, barely, not to wince. “It’s a good thing I didn’t have any plans for tonight.”

  Mags laughed. “Oh, don’t be cross. Knowledge must be earned, and sometimes this is the only way to do it.” She waved to Quentin and Tybalt. “Come along, gentlemen. We’ll get more knowledge ready for the fight.”

  “Um,” said Quentin. “Okay.”

  Tybalt paused next to me, murmuring, “If anything troubles you, yell.”

  “If anything troubles me, I’ll stab it to death,” I said, and kissed him. “Go with the nice Librarian. Find the book that cracks the case.”

  He sighed. “As you say.” I watched him walk after Mags and Quentin until he vanished into the stacks. What can I say? He was still wearing leather pants.

  I walked over to the nearest couch and sat, piling the books around me. They looked dusty, but the dust didn’t come away on my fingers, and I had to wonder how much of it had been generated by the Librarian herself. Maybe it was connected to her admittedly eccentric filing system. Navigation via dust.

  Reaching into the pile, I picked up the first book my fingers hit, a fat red volume with a redwood tree embossed in gold across the front. I flipped it open to the front page, where the title The Life and Times of King Gilad Windermere in the Mists, Duke of Golden Gate, Protector of the Western Coast was written in florid calligraphy.

  “I wish I’d packed some of Marcia’s sandwiches to go,” I muttered, and started reading.

  The text was dry, which I expected. It was also dense. By the end of the first chapter, I knew Crown Prince Gilad was an only child; that his parents had been married for more than six hundred years before he was born; that he was a prodigy in every possible way, as befitted a King; and that he really liked climbing trees. Like, really liked climbing trees. Once he was old enough to walk and control his natural teleportation magic, he was continually being fished out of trees all over the Kingdom. Mostly in Muir Woods, where the redwoods presented an irresistible challenge.

  At the end of the chapter, Gilad was approaching his teens and had adopted the redwood tree as his personal banner, and I was developing the worst headache I’d had in a long t
ime. I groaned, dropping my head into my hands. “Oh, oak and ash, I hate history,” I moaned.

  “History hates you as well,” said Tybalt, whisking the book out of my lap as he sat next to me. “It goes out of its way to be complicated and inscrutable for just that reason.”

  “Right now, I’m inclined to believe you.” I eyed the stack of books that he’d brought with him. Quentin was staggering toward us with even more books in his arms. Mags walked behind him, clutching a single massive volume to her chest. “How much history is there?”

  “Years and years,” said Mags, and giggled, like that was the funniest joke she’d ever heard. Sobering, she explained, “Much of what you’ll find here is the same information from slightly different points of view. There’s little that’s unique. Historians are magpies, in their way, and they share things back and forth. Still, if you can find a footnote that points you to an index that leads you to a bit of knowledge you didn’t have before . . . librarianship is a form of heroism. It’s just not as flashy as swords and dragons.”

  “Any tips on slaying this particular beast?”

  “If you could tell me exactly what it was you were looking for . . .” Mags looked from face to face, catching the sudden guardedness in our expressions. “No, I rather thought not. Well, then, I suppose it’s time we reviewed the rules of the Library. Nothing’s quite free, you know.”

  “I figured,” I said, and sat up a little straighter. “What’s the fee?”

  “The fee comes, in part, with obedience. There is no running in the Library unless you’re being pursued by something that didn’t enter with you. There is no fighting in the Library.”

  “What about fighting back?” asked Quentin.

  “Self-defense is allowed,” said Mags. “But aggressors will be evicted, and their privilege of passage revoked. Do not taunt someone simply because you think they can’t hit you here.”

  I frowned. “You sound like you’re expecting trouble.”

  To my surprise, she laughed. “Amandine’s daughter comes here from the Queen’s Court, if the dress you’re wearing is any indication, and starts asking for books about a long-dead King? It doesn’t take a genius to know that you are trouble, and you’re likely to cause even more.”

  “Fair,” I admitted.

  “Next, I’ll need you to tell me about your mum. We can do that part later, once you have the information you need, but it’s clear you know something that’s not in her official biography, and that could help me quite a bit.” Mags looked almost abashed. “The Libraries work on a system of information for information, you see. If I have verified information that no one else does, I can use it to trade for some volumes we’ve needed here. Undersea histories and the like.”

  “Done,” I said. Mom gave up the right to pretend she was Daoine Sidhe when she lied to me about my heritage, then left me with powers I didn’t fully understand. I paused as a thought occurred to me, and asked, “While we’re here, do you have any books about hope chests?” They were a manufactured method of doing what my mother—and I—could do naturally. Maybe reading about the hope chests could give me a better idea of how my own magic worked.

  And how to hurt people less when I had to use it on them.

  “I do,” Mags said. “I’ll get it for you.”

  I looked at the heap already building around me, and sighed. “Right. We’re going to need to make a coffee run.”

  Mags smiled. “I like my mochas with extra whipped cream.”

  SEVEN

  AFTER SOME DEBATE—and writing our order on a piece of scratch paper—Quentin and Tybalt were dispatched to get coffee, on the theory that Mags was the Librarian and I was the one who’d actually be banished if I didn’t find something useful in these books. I squinted at the one I had open, wondering if it would make more sense after I’d had some coffee. Mags emerged from the shelf-maze with another four books in her arms.

  I looked up. “Was this written to be confusing?”

  “What’s the title?”

  “Um . . . A History of the Westlands, volume III.”

  “Then yes. That series was written to the style of the time, which called for absolute heroism on the part of everyone involved, even the villains. It made things a bit difficult to muddle through.” She put the fresh stack of books down next to me. “It might help if I knew what you were looking for. King Gilad wasn’t a friend of mine, but we met. He came to the Library more than a few times. Never would tell me what he was looking for, but oh, he was a sweet one, when he wanted to be . . .”

  I looked up, assessing her. Finally, after a pause almost long enough to let me lose my nerve, I asked, “What do you know about the Queen of the Mists?”

  “Not much. Our biography on her is more like a pamphlet. ‘How to start a war and terrorize your citizenry without revealing your real name.’ And she’s not Gilad’s heir, of course. I’d have been happy to confirm that, if I’d ever been asked.” Mags shook her head. “She claimed the throne, the local nobles backed her, and no one ever came here to check her pedigree. Sloppy. But then, succession so often is.”

  I stared at her.

  She blinked. “What? Did I say something wrong? Not that it matters—Libraries are sovereign territories. I can’t commit treason unless I do it outside these walls.”

  “Good to know.” I set the book I’d been struggling with aside. “How can you be sure she wasn’t his heir?”

  Mags blinked again, wings buzzing in a rapid blur that telegraphed her confusion. “Because I met his children.”

  I was on my feet before I realized I was going to move. “Children? King Gilad never married.”

  “Marriage is not a requirement for children, nor does every marriage result in children,” said Mags slowly. “Do I need to add some books about sexual reproduction to your pull list?”

  “No! I mean . . . he was the King. Why wouldn’t he have gotten married if he was going to have children?”

  “As a King, I believe I can answer that,” said Tybalt. I turned. He was standing in the opening of the nearest row of bookshelves with Quentin and a tray of take-out cups. “I never introduced my wife to the Divided Courts. My cats knew her because I wanted her to have their protection. But she never met a soul she did not need to know.”

  He walked over to me, taking the largest of the cups off the tray and holding it out. I took it. He smiled, a little sadly.

  “A King learns to conceal what matters most, lest others use it as a weapon against him. I learned that early and held it dear. If King Gilad had children, he did well to keep them from the public eye.”

  “A little too well, since it looks like it netted us the wrong Queen.” I turned back to Mags. “Were they too young to claim the throne when their father died?”

  “They may have been dead, or injured, or lost in grief,” she said. “The Kingdom was in chaos after the earthquake. No one expected Gilad to be killed. If Arden and Nolan lived—”

  I went still. “Wait. Arden?”

  “Yes. Arden Windermere, the King’s daughter.”

  When Dean and Peter Lorden were kidnapped, their kidnappers hid them in a shallowing in Muir Woods. The Luidaeg was able to convince it to let us in by telling it that Arden lived. The Luidaeg never lied.

  The King’s daughter was alive.

  Quentin’s thoughts had clearly mirrored mine. He nodded toward the door. “I’ll stay here and keep reading,” he said.

  “Good,” I said. “Mags, if we go, can we come back?”

  “Of course,” she said. “A Library pass is good for a fortnight, and you owe me information. The Library will not move as long as your pass is good.”

  “Since that’s more time than I have left in the Kingdom, that should be more than enough.” I turned to Tybalt. “We need to go back to the Luidaeg.”

  He nodded. “Yes. I suppose we do.”

  “Wait!”

  We both turned to Mags. “Yes?” I asked.

  “Is the Luidaeg still in Sa
n Francisco?” Her cheeks reddened as she added, “I haven’t heard from her in years. I thought she’d moved on to some other coastal city.”

  “She’s here,” I said. “I don’t know why, but she’s here. And I think she knows where Arden Windermere is, which means I need to talk to her. Quentin, call if you need anything, or if you need us to come and get you, okay?”

  “Okay.” He sat down on the couch with his coffee. “I’m good at research.”

  “Compared to me, so are pixies.” I looked to Mags. “It’s been lovely to meet you. I hope we meet again soon.”

  “As do I,” she said. “Open roads and kind fires.”

  “All winds to guide you,” I replied, and moved toward Tybalt. He put the tray with the remaining cups down before taking hold of me and stepping into the shadows. The last thing I saw was Mags’ startled expression. Then the blackness blocked everything else, and we were running through the cold, me trying to hold Tybalt’s hand and my coffee at the same time, Tybalt pulling me along at his usual breakneck pace. I thought briefly about drinking the coffee, and decided that would cross the line from silly to stupid.

  The sun had come up while we were in the Library; its walls had been enough to protect us from the effects of the dawn. That was a pleasant surprise. We emerged from the shadows onto the street a few blocks from the Luidaeg’s apartment. I stepped away from Tybalt and peered into my coffee cup before sighing. “It’s frozen.”

  “That happens to liquids on the Shadow Roads,” said Tybalt. He sniffed the air, and frowned. “October . . .”

  “Is this where you tell me the Queen is staking out the Luidaeg’s place in order to keep me from going for help?”

  He paused, frown deepening, before he asked, “How did you know?”

  “It’s what I’d do, if I were feeling really stupid and predictable.” I pulled my phone out of my pocket, dialing half a phone number before muttering, “Pussy-cat, pussy-cat, where have you been? I’ve been to London to piss off the Queen,” and filling the rest of the screen with zeros. The cut grass and copper smell of my magic rose around me as I raised the phone to my ear.