Ashes of Honor: An October Daye Novel

“October…”

“I’m almost there, Etienne.” My fingertips were charred, and it was harder to bend my fingers than it should have been. I shook my hands, trying to get some of the feeling back, before I started digging through the bracken again, looking for a fresh lock pick.

Tybalt groaned. I froze.

“Tybalt?”

The sound wasn’t repeated. I swallowed, hard, and dug down into the brush until I found a sprig of broom that suited my needs. Then I scooted down, bending to begin fiddling with the locks holding his ankles together.

Some pains get better with exposure, familiarity breeding a sort of physical contempt. The pain of flesh touching iron isn’t one of them. You’ll eventually go numb from all the poison being pumped into your system, but that isn’t the same thing. Gripping the cuffs on Tybalt’s ankles was just as bad as gripping the cuffs on his wrists had been. At least this time I knew that I’d eventually be able to get the locks open. I bit my lip harder still, and somehow got the first of the ankle cuffs unlocked. I kept working.

“Almost…there…” The last lock let go. The cuffs fell away. I scooted back in the bracken, clutching my burned fingers to my chest and trying to figure out what I was supposed to do now.

And Tybalt opened his eyes.

Cait Sidhe can see through don’t-look-here spells. I don’t know why; maybe it’s something to do with that whole “a cat can look at a King” thing. “Tybalt?” The question was half-whisper, half-plea, as if I didn’t know whether I wanted to hear the answer. I bit my lip, scooting a little closer, careful to avoid the fallen cuffs. “Are you okay?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he sat up slowly, touching the burned places on his wrists with shaking hands before raising his head and looking at me. His pupils were so wide they all but devoured his irises, making his eyes inhuman and strange.

I could hear Etienne moving in the room behind me, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was Tybalt, looking at me like he didn’t know me at all. “Tybalt, it’s me, October…”

Tybalt moved almost too fast for my eyes to follow, closing the distance between us in less than a second. His hands caught my shoulders as he crushed his lips against mine, tasting of sweat and crushed broom as well as the more customary pennyroyal and musk. I returned the kiss without thought or hesitation, molding myself into him, trying to express my relief without words. We didn’t need any words. Not anymore.

His teeth cut my lip. I welcomed the taste of my own blood, letting myself draw strength from it. The wound had healed by the time he pulled away from me, and the burning sensation in my fingers was fading, replaced by a numbness I knew couldn’t last. My body could recover from almost anything. Iron poisoning isn’t “almost anything.” The pain would come soon.

And that didn’t matter, because Tybalt was looking at me, eyes returning to normal as his breathing evened out. “October,” he whispered, and the sound of his voice was the sweetest thing I’d ever heard. “I was afraid…”

“So was I.” I put my hand against his cheek. “Don’t scare me like that.”

“I assure you, it wasn’t my intent.” He looked past me, pupils narrowing, and offered a small nod. “Sir Etienne.”

“Tybalt.” There was a scuff of boots against the floor as Etienne stepped up behind me. “Loath as I am to disrupt this reunion—almost as loath as I am to ask any questions about it—we must move. Chelsea is somewhere in this place, and we need to find her.”

“Yeah, we do,” I said, and pulled my hand away from Tybalt’s cheek. “Can you stand?”

“For you, little fish, I would do anything.” Tybalt paused before adding, regretfully, “But desire does not mean ability. I’m not sure I can walk right now.”

“Can you change shapes?”

Tybalt blinked. Then he nodded. “I believe so.”