Chimes at Midnight: An October Daye Novel (30 page)

I pressed my fingers against the side of Tybalt’s throat, trying to find a pulse, and found nothing. “Come on,” I whispered. “Please, just this once, just this one time, forget you’re a cat, and come when you’re called. Please.”

He didn’t respond. The muscles in his face were completely relaxed. He looked like he was sleeping; like he’d wake up at any moment.

My head was still spinning. I raised my hand to cup his cheek. “Please, don’t do this. Tybalt, you promised. You promised you wouldn’t do this.”

He didn’t move.

I took a deep, ragged breath, reaching up to touch the firefly that was huddled in my hair. I didn’t know whether seeing illusions would extend to hearing things that were normally confined to Faerie, but it was worth a try. The firefly’s wings buzzed against my fingers. I eased my butt down to the stone floor, leaning against Tybalt, and waited for something to happen. Seconds ticked by, each of them seeming to last an eternity.

And in the distance, I heard the sound of wings.

My heart lurched. I opened my eyes and turned to see the first of the night-haunts descending toward us. No—not the first. The flock normally traveled together, a great swarm of shadowy bodies and ragged, fast-beating wings. There were only two this time, both wearing faces I recognized. My old mentor, Devin . . .

. . . and Connor. They landed several feet away, folding their wings behind their Barbie-sized bodies and watching me warily.

Hope bloomed in my chest like a cruel flower. “He’s not dead, is he?” I asked.

“Death is like pregnancy,” said Devin’s haunt. “A little can go a very long way.”

Connor’s haunt gave him a reproachful look, but didn’t say anything.

“It doesn’t work that way,” I countered. “You’re either pregnant or you’re not. You’re either dead . . .”

“Or you’re dying,” said the Connor-haunt. “I’m sorry, Toby, but that’s the way it is. Death isn’t something that has to be helped along. Once it starts, it generally finishes.”

“Then tell me how to save him.” They stared at me. I fought the urge to grab them and bash their diminutive heads together. They’d eat me if I tried. “You’re the night-haunts. You speak death. Tell me how to save him.”

“October—” began Connor’s haunt.

The Devin-haunt grabbed his arm, stopping him. “We do not bargain with the
living
,” he said. “No matter how much we remember caring for them.”

“Not even when the living can make so many meals for you?” I asked. I wasn’t going to touch the topic of Devin having cared for me. “Please. I’ve fed your flock. I saved May, even if I didn’t know I was doing it. Please, help me save him.” I paused before whispering, “Connor, please.”

“We owe you nothing,” said the Devin-haunt, releasing the Connor-haunt’s arm. “But there is something charmingly perverse about the idea of your being bound to do us a favor. We have not been owed a favor by the living in a very long time.” Connor’s haunt looked away, falling silent once more. He looked ashamed in that moment. My heart ached for him . . . but he was dead. I had to save my strength for the living.

“I won’t kill anyone for you.” My lips felt numb as they shaped the words. I meant that—there were some things I couldn’t even justify by saving Tybalt’s life—but I hated myself for saying it.

“Death is our job, not yours,” said the Devin-haunt. He gave Tybalt a disgusted look. “The cat is not dead, merely drained. The holder of these halls has tightened her wards since the last time the Shadow Roads were used to pierce them, and mortality weighs heavily in that darkness.”

“So he hurt himself because he had to carry me through something that wasn’t designed to let humans pass.” I took a deep breath, swallowing my guilt. “I will owe you a favor.”

“Yes, you will,” said the Devin-haunt. “And if you default on us, we will take you.”

The idea of being eaten by the night-haunts while I was still alive didn’t exactly appeal, but I didn’t see another way. Not if I wanted Tybalt to live. Reluctantly, I nodded. “I’ll do whatever you ask me, as long as I don’t have to kill anyone. I won’t kill anyone.”

“Agreed,” said the Devin-haunt. There was a strange weight to the word, like it was binding above and beyond the actual meaning.

Feeling vaguely as if I’d just made a huge mistake, I asked, “How do I fix this?”

“The cat is sore wounded. He used his strength until there was nothing more. He needs power.” The Devin-haunt fluttered his wings. “Were you your own self, I would say you could grant it to him, but as you are . . .”

“As I am, I’ve got nothing.”

He smiled. “And yet you could have everything you desire.”

I frowned at him before finally looking away from Tybalt and the night-haunts, and taking stock of my surroundings.

We were in the final hall leading to the Queen’s dungeons. That was why the wall had felt so much harder than the floor; the floor was just stone, and the walls were laced with iron, to dampen and poison the magic of anyone who tried to escape. That explained why only two of the strongest night-haunts had come: the weaker members of the flock would probably have dissolved as soon as they entered. Torches made of mixed rowan and yarrow burned in sconces set into the wall, sending plumes of smoke up into the air.

We were in the Queen’s knowe. We were near the hope chest.

I turned back to the night-haunts. “How much time do I have?”

“The guards at the door heard the sound of wings,” said Connor’s haunt. “They’re not going to come in here until they’re sure that we’ve come and gone. They’d rather not see us if they have a choice in the matter.”

A cruel smile twisted the mouth of Devin’s haunt. “Fear is a beautiful wall to place between yourself and your enemies.”

“Okay. So . . . okay.” That didn’t give me an
exact
time, but it was a start. I stood, trying to ignore the shaking in my legs. “Can you stay with him?”

“Until you return, or until he comes with us,” said the Devin-haunt.

I blanched. No matter how bad I felt, I was doing this on a time limit. “All right,” I said. “I’ll be back soon.”

Connor’s wings rattled, and he looked at me, sea-dark eyes sad. “Hurry,” he said.

There was a warning in that word that I couldn’t deny, no matter how much I wanted to. I needed to hurry; I needed to run through the knowe until I found the treasury. But I was still smart enough to know that I wouldn’t make it very far if I tried to do this on my own. Slowly, I turned toward the darkened hall ahead of me. Somewhere down there in the dark was the only aid I was going to find here, in this place controlled by one of my worst enemies. All I had to do was find Dianda, free her, and hope that she was still capable of helping me after being locked in an iron-laced cell. And I had to do it before my boyfriend died.

“No pressure,” I muttered, and pulled a torch from its sconce before I limped onward into the dark.

I
’D NEVER BEEN ON THIS SIDE of the cells before while I was in a position to look around. The air was thick with smoke, making it difficult to see even in the light cast by my borrowed torch. I limped from door to door, peering through the hatches set into them at eye level. The first four cells I passed were empty. When I opened the hatch on the fifth door, a brick rebounded off the grill.

“Whoa!” I yelped, barely managing to fling myself out of the way of the flying stone chips. “Dianda? Is that you?”

“Come a little closer and find out for yourself,” she snarled.

“. . . definitely Dianda,” I muttered. Louder, I said, “It’s me, Toby. Can you please not throw anything else? I’m here to get you out of there.”

There was a pause before Dianda said suspiciously, “Prove it.”

I moved back in front of her cell’s hatch. She was standing at the center of the room in bipedal form, a brick in one hand, glaring. Her tunic was ripped and stained with blood and rust. She wasn’t wearing any pants, or shoes.

She scowled when she saw my face. “You’re not October,” she snarled, and pulled back her arm, preparing to fling the second brick.

“Whoa, whoa, hold up!” I said. “I
am
October, I just had a little accident with a goblin fruit pie and sort of accidentally turned myself mostly human.” The sheer ridiculousness of that statement hit me as soon as it had left my mouth. I winced. “Okay, let me try again . . .”

“There’s no need. No one else would say something that dumb and actually mean it.” Dianda lowered the brick. “How did you get here?” She seemed to be trying to look past me to the hall. The reason was revealed when she asked, “How many guards did you bring?”

“I brought a force of one, and he’s in trouble. I need you to help me find the treasury so I can fix myself, because I can’t fix him until I do that.” I drew my iron knife. The hilt was heavy and familiar in my hand. “Hold tight. I’m going to get you out of here.”

“Hurry.” Dianda wrapped her arms a little tighter around herself. “The air in here burns.”

“I know.” I dropped to one knee, wincing, and studied the lock. The fact that Dianda was still standing, and still strong enough not to revert to her natural form, was sort of awe-inspiring. Iron saps strength, and the more fae someone is, the faster iron will start affecting them. Dianda was pureblooded. She should have been writhing in agony. Instead, she was just looking for something she could hit.

I knew I liked her for a reason.

The lock was surprisingly easy to pick, maybe because there’d never been much of a reason to make it very secure. The Queen’s dungeon was hard to access, and anyone fae enough to know it existed was unlikely to ever make it that far. I twisted my knife to the side and the tumbler popped, allowing me to unlatch the door.

“All right; I’m opening the do—” Dianda burst out of the room, shoving past me, and stopped at the middle of the hallway, breathing so hard she looked like she’d just finished a marathon. I caught myself against the wall. “—or now,” I finished. “You okay?”

“My blood is full of stinging jellies and I want to hurt someone,” she snarled. “So it’s to be treason now, is it?”

“No, it’s not,” I said. “Arden just announced her regency. Unless she fails, this Queen has no right to hold you.”

Dianda blinked, and then slowly smiled. “Wonderful. Now about those people I wanted to hurt . . .”

“We can’t.” I shook my head, resheathing my knife. “We have something else to do.”

“What?” Dianda’s eyebrows arched upward in surprise. “I’m sorry. You get to give me orders now? Did I miss the annexation of the Undersea?”

“No,” I said. “But Tybalt is dying, and we need to find the treasury if there’s going to be any chance of saving him. I can’t do it on my own. I need your help.”

“A knight of the land Courts asking a Duchess of the Undersea to save a King of Cats,” said Dianda, almost thoughtfully. “You live your life in a stew of myths, don’t you?”

I glared. “This is no time to stand here quipping. Will you help me, or am I leaving you to find your own way out of here?”

“Of course I’ll help you.” Her bravado slipped, revealing the wounded, weary woman behind her mask. “Love should always be saved—and I owe the bitch who holds this knowe more pain than I can properly describe. We may as well begin with a little robbery.”

“Great.” I turned in a circle, finally pointing toward the nearest set of stairs. “That way. That’ll get us back to ground-level.”

“Where is the treasury from there?”

“I . . .” I stopped, shoulders sagging. “I don’t know.”

“Well, then. It’s a good thing you have me.” Dianda started walking. I moved to pace her. She was moving slowly enough that I could, and I didn’t get the impression that it was due to courtesy; she was a mermaid who’d been forced to remain in a mostly-human shape for hours. She couldn’t have walked faster if she’d wanted to.

Since for the moment, we only needed to climb stairs, I didn’t ask what she’d meant: I just focused on putting one foot in front of the other. Midway up, I paused to pop another of Walther’s blood gems into my mouth. It barely took the edge off my hunger. That didn’t matter, because I wouldn’t need them much longer.

One way or another, I wouldn’t need them much longer.

Dianda reached the door at the top of the stairs first, and paused, leaning in until her ear was almost brushing against the wood. She held up two fingers. I nodded. Then, since I was the one more equipped to touch the iron laced through the door itself, I braced my shoulder against it and shoved it open.

I had time to see the startled look on the first guard’s face before Dianda hit him in the throat, the sort of sucker punch that made it impossible for him to do anything but fall down. I grabbed his spear as he fell, whipping around and swinging it toward the other side of the door. Momentum turned me to face the second guard just as the haft of the spear hit her across the belly. The air rushed out of her as a loud grunt. Dianda promptly punched her three times in the face, and she went down beside her partner.

The door to the dungeons swung shut with a disturbingly final-sounding bang. Tybalt was down there, alone with the night-haunts. We had to hurry.

“Amateurs,” scoffed Dianda, and crouched to begin searching the fallen guards. “I’ve got a short sword here.”

“I’ll keep the spear,” I said.

“Suit yourself.” Dianda straightened, belting the guard’s sword around her waist as she held up a key ring. “Do you know how to get to the main receiving room?”

“That way.” I pointed.

“Good. Which way is the armory?”

I pointed again, in the opposite direction.

“Even better.” Dianda started toward the armory, bare feet slapping against the stone floor. “The treasury is likely to be near the place where they keep the weapons, but still reasonably close to where Court is held. That makes it accessible but defensible, and means the dungeon is nice and easy to get to if someone tries to rob you.”

“Logic in knowe-building. All right.” I followed, watching for signs of attack. The halls were quiet around us, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Even after years of dealing with her, I didn’t have any idea how big the Queen’s Court actually was. It could have been huge, staffed on a scale with the knowe she claimed. It could also have been tiny. She usually kept visitors confined to the main hall, and that meant she could have been doing everything with no more than twenty people.

“So Arden’s claim is declared, huh? Good. I’ve been looking forward to a brawl.” Dianda’s tone was casual, but her cheeks were flushed with spots of hectic red. “How’s Dean?”

“He and Patrick are both fine,” I said. “The Queen only arrested you.”

“Thank Oberon for that.” Dianda kept walking. “What are we doing, exactly?”

“We’re breaking into the Queen’s treasury so I can find the hope chest I gave her when Evening died,” I said. “That’ll let me change my blood back to normal, so I can save Tybalt.”

“I have no idea what any of that means, but it all sounds very epic and important, so I’m sure it’ll work.” Dianda wiped her forehead with the back of one hand. “And then I’m going to kick that white-haired usurper’s ass from here to Atlantis.”

“Just hold on to that,” I said, watching her anxiously. She was showing the classic symptoms of iron poisoning. Walther could treat that, but only if I could get her to him—and if she keeled over, I wasn’t going to be getting her anywhere.

Footsteps up ahead cut off any further conversation. Two more of the Queen’s guards came around the corner, stopping when they saw us. I threw my spear at the guard on the left. It bounced harmlessly off his chest, but it was a distraction. It bought us a few seconds. I drew my knives and Dianda drew her sword. Then, with no more civility than that, we charged.

The first guard never got a chance to do anything. Dianda’s swing caught him in the side of the head, the pommel of her sword impacting hard against bone. The second guard was faster. I slashed at him and he dodged, before swinging his own sword at my side. It was a good hit, the kind of thing Sylvester had tried—and failed—to teach me to avoid before I learned to depend on my own ability to recover from any nonmortal injury. The blade cut deep before it was withdrawn, and the smell of blood flooded my nostrils.

The guard pulled back for another swing. I summoned every bit of training I’d ever had, using it to dodge the hit that would have ended the fight for good, and pressed my iron knife against his throat. He froze.

“Drop the sword,” I said. It clattered to the hallway floor. “Which way to the treasury?”

“I will not betray—” he began.

“She’s not your Queen,” I snarled. “She’s a fake, and the real Queen is finally here. You’re betraying
nothing
, and you’re saving yourself from death by iron. Oberon’s Law doesn’t bind me. I’m too
human
for that, and it’s your beloved pretender’s fault. Now. Which way is the treasury?”

Something in my eyes must have told him I was serious. He raised one shaking hand, pointing back the way he’d come. I nodded.

“How many men are guarding the doors?”

“Two,” he whispered.

“Good answer.” I let go as Dianda hit him in the back of the head, sending him crumpling to the floor. I nudged his body with a toe. He didn’t move. “Did you just kill him?”

“No, but he’ll wish I had when he wakes up.” Dianda looked at me, and her eyes widened. “Toby, you’re bleeding.”

“I know. I haven’t felt this good in days.” I touched my side and winced, resolutely not looking at the damage. “It won’t last. We’d better hurry.” I didn’t want to stop the bleeding—the smell was helping, and as long as I was bleeding, I didn’t have to acknowledge how bad the wound actually was. That didn’t mean I could bleed forever without consequences.

Eyes still wide, Dianda nodded. “All right. Come on.”

We abandoned pretensions of stealth as we hurried down the hall. We were leaving four fallen guards and a blood trail behind us. All we had on our side was speed, and so we were using it as best we could. Which . . . wasn’t all that good, considering our respective situations. Maybe it shouldn’t have been a surprise when we turned another corner and found six guards standing in front of a pair of double doors, obviously waiting for us.

“Aw, they want to win,” said Dianda, and broke into a run, launching herself at the startled guards at the last minute. Her body seemed to glitter in midair as her legs elongated into a muscular, scale-covered tail, and she slammed into the first three men like a battering ram, her momentum and increased weight bringing them all crashing to the ground. Still on top of the first three men, she slammed her tail into a fourth, sending him into the nearby wall.

“Get in here!” she roared.

I got.

Playing nice was no longer an option: I was weak from blood loss and withdrawal, and I wasn’t sure Dianda would be able to shift back into her bipedal form, which meant she might be a fish out of water for the rest of the fight. I kneed one guard solidly in the nuts. He crumpled, and I hit him on the back of the neck for good measure. Dianda, meanwhile, was simply hitting her four with her tail over and over again, looking entirely too gleeful about the situation.

“She really did just want something to hit,” I muttered, turning toward the final guard. She was clutching her spear with both hands, a terrified expression on her face. I guess she didn’t see rampaging mermaids and blood-drenched hoodlums every day. “Hi,” I said. “You look like a nice girl. Run away now, nice girl, and we’ll pretend we didn’t see you go.”

I didn’t have to tell her twice. She whirled and ran, leaving her spear to clatter to the floor. A wave of dizzy grayness washed over me. I slumped against the wall, putting a hand over the wound at my side. “Yeah,” I said faintly. “You better run.”

“October?” Dianda’s voice was very far away. “Are you all right?”

“No.” I pushed myself away from the wall and moved to try the treasury door. It was locked. The thought of trying to pick it made me tired. “I need those keys you grabbed before.”

She tossed me the key ring. It clattered to the floor at my feet, and it took me three tries to pick it up with my sticky, trembling fingers. The keyhole was large enough that I was able to eliminate half the keys before I even started testing them against the lock. The first three wouldn’t turn. The fourth turned slightly, and then stopped, refusing to go any further.