Ashes of Honor: An October Daye Novel

That’s what saved us. When the second group of Folletti floated up through the open central column of the spiral stairway, Etienne yanked me backward against him, covering my mouth the way I’d covered his only a few minutes before. The Folletti drifted by without noticing us. Once they were past, Etienne let me go, and we resumed our downward trek.

With the Folletti above us now, we were able to continue down past the floor where Etienne and I had been held. There was another floor below it, identical to the two above. I stopped at the landing, pulling the Luidaeg’s Chelsea-chaser out of my pocket. It was still glowing the color of pale starlight. Chelsea wasn’t here. But that didn’t mean Quentin wasn’t.

Bringing my mouth close to Tybalt’s ear, I whispered, “Are you feeling strong enough to check the hall for prisoners? I don’t need you to get into their rooms. Just find out if there’s anyone here for us to save.”

Tybalt opened his mouth in a silent meow—the secret weapon of cats everywhere—and squirmed to tell me that I should put him down. I bent to set him gingerly on the cold stone floor, and watched uneasily as he slunk out of sight down the hall.

Etienne put his hand on my shoulder. I looked back to him, forcing myself to smile. He glanced down the hall after Tybalt before raising an eyebrow in silent question. I hesitated, considering my answer…and then, finally, I nodded. Yes. I was worried about Tybalt, and yes, I was worried for reasons beyond simple friendship. Oak and ash. If I was going to fall in love with the man, couldn’t I have picked a more reasonable time to do it?

Then again, when do I get a reasonable time to do anything anymore? There’s always something going wrong. If I put my life on hold until everything was calm, I’d be waiting forever for the chance to start living.

Tybalt came slinking back along the hall and wound himself around my ankles in a complicated figure-eight pattern before starting back the way he’d come. I followed, catching his intent, and Etienne followed me. The three of us made an odd procession as we continued along the hallway to another of those damn locked doors. I dropped to my knees, pulling a sprig of bracken from my hair. By the time this night was over—if nights in Annwn ever really ended—I was going to be well practiced in the arts of breaking and entering.

Tybalt sat next to me and Etienne stood guard as I picked the lock. If it was Quentin on the other side, we’d be back together; we could hunt for Chelsea in earnest. I wouldn’t need to worry that my squire was in Riordan’s boudoir, waiting for her to come along and make him an offer he’d really want to refuse. If it was Quentin…the lock let go. I pushed the door open.

It wasn’t Quentin.

Officer Thornton of the San Francisco Police was lying bound in a heap of bracken like the ones we’d found in each of the other rooms. Like Etienne, he was blindfolded; like both Etienne and Tybalt, he’d clearly been beaten. Unlike either of them, he was human. I stood slowly, too startled to know what to say.

Much to my surprise, it was Etienne who found the words I couldn’t: “Oh, Oberon’s honor,” he said.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “That.”

Riordan was kidnapping humans. That wasn’t technically against any fae laws—Faerie has always had a generous definition of “acceptable” when it comes to messing with the human world. As long as you don’t get caught or leave witnesses, no one cares. But she had a mortal life, too, and that meant that Officer Thornton’s presence signaled one very big, very bad thing.

She wasn’t planning to go back to a world where she might be in trouble for kidnapping a police officer.

If we didn’t find Chelsea soon, we were going to be stuck in Annwn.





TWENTY-THREE