“And I can’t even change the ringtone on my phone,” I muttered. More loudly, I asked, “So she called you?”
“Yes. Three hours ago now.” Etienne rubbed his face again. “It seems we were both keeping secrets. I didn’t tell her I wasn’t human.”
There was only one thing he could say next, and it wasn’t something I wanted to hear. I still prompted him, asking, “And what did she not tell you?”
“That she was pregnant.” Etienne dropped his hand away from his face, looking at me despondently. “I have a changeling daughter, October. Almost sixteen years old and raised outside of Faerie’s knowledge.”
I stared at him, stunned into silence.
Most changeling children have instinctive illusions that make them seem human for the earliest years of their lives. It’s a form of defensive camouflage, like spots on a fawn. But that baby magic shorts out as changelings grow, and a changeling who hasn’t learned to weave a human disguise by the age of six or seven is a danger to Faerie. Secrecy is the only thing that’s kept us alive for so long. Etienne had always played things by the rules and by the book—and now there was a chance that he’d committed the greatest infraction of them all. There was a chance he’d given Faerie away.
There was just one piece missing. “So…if your daughter is sixteen, her baby magic must have failed years ago. Why did Bridget call you now? What changed?” I paused, then asked the big question: “How did you not know?”
“I never asked,” said Etienne. He smiled—the small, painful smile of a man who suddenly saw what he had been doing wrong for years. “All the people I paid to check on her, all the pixies and sprites I bribed…I never asked them to check for a child, and I never went myself. I didn’t know the girl existed because I never asked.”
“Oak and ash,” I breathed. “And…why now?”
“Bridget called because our daughter is missing.” Etienne sat up a little straighter, looking me in the eyes. “She vanished this afternoon, on her way home from school—and I do mean ‘vanished.’ Her friends said she was there one moment and gone the next. Bridget assumed, quite reasonably, that the faeries had finally found her. She called me screaming, begging for the return of her little girl. She knew exactly what I was, even down to the name of my race.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have dated a folklore professor,” I said.
“Maybe not,” said Etienne. “Regardless, I did, and we had a child together, and now that child is missing. She may have been taken. She may have finally found the magic she was heir to and not known how to control it. Either way, I am here to hire you. Please, October. I need you to find my daughter.”
Oh, oak and ash. This wasn’t going to end well.
FOUR
I STARED AT ETIENNE. He must have been expecting that reaction, because he didn’t bat an eye. He just looked back at me, waiting for me to get it out of my system.
If I’d been asked to list the ten people most likely to have an affair with a human, Etienne wouldn’t have come anywhere near making the cut. And if I’d been asked to make a list of the people I could see fathering an accidental changeling, Etienne wouldn’t have made the top fifty. Like most Tuatha, he loved rules, and the rules said that sort of behavior wasn’t allowed. But Sylvester had been out of his mind with fear and grief, leaving Etienne to hold things together by himself, and that had changed the rules. Tired men make mistakes when they’re looking for a place to rest. Etienne wasn’t human, but he was still a man.
May’s laughter drifted up the stairs, reminding me that time was passing. Whatever had happened to Etienne’s daughter wasn’t going to unhappen just because I was busy staring at her father. “Etienne—”
Ashes of Honor: An October Daye Novel
Seanan McGuire's books
- Bed of Roses
- Son Of The Morning
- Cover Of Night
- Affairs of State
- A Profiler's Case for Seduction
- Because of Rebecca
- Conflict of Interest
- Eclipse of the Heart
- Flames of Attraction
- Illusions of Love
- Keeper of the Moon
- Keeper of the Shadows
- Legacy of Love
- Love Proof (Laws of Attraction)
- Miles of Pleasure
- Of One Heart
- Off Limits
- Off Sides
- Out of the Dark (The Brethren Series)
- Out of the Depths
- Pool of Crimson
- Prince of Wolves
- Rules of Entanglement
- Shadow of My Heart
- Sins of a Ruthless Rogue
- Something of a Kind
- Son of a Preacher Man
- Taste of Desire
- Taste of Love
- Translation of Love
- Web of Deception
- Words of Love
- The Lady of Bolton Hill
- The Scars of Us(Scars Series)
- Dreams of Lilacs
- House of Ivy & Sorrow
- A Question of Honor
- The Owner of His Heart
- The Heir of the Castle
- Tower of Glass
- The Last Prince of Dahaar
- Terms of Engagement
- Secrets of a Bollywood Marriage
- David Lord of Honor
- Return of the Prodigal Gilvry
- Killing Me Softly(A Broken Souls Series)
- Starting Over(Hart of Seattle)
- The Resurrection of Aubrey Mill
- OFF SIDES
- Confessions of a Royal Bridegroom
- Stolen: Warriors of Hir, Book 3
- The CEO Buys in (Wager of Hearts #1)
- The Law of Moses
- A Pound of Flesh (A Pound of Flesh #1)
- Arouse: A Spiral of Bliss Novel (Book One)
- Awaken: A Spiral of Bliss Novel (Book Three)
- The Art of French Kissing
- Leo (A Sign of Love Novel)
- Echoes of Scotland Street
- Jesus Freaks: Sins of the Father
- Stinger (A Sign of Love Novel)
- Ten Days of Perfect (November Blue #1)
- The Song of David
- The House of the Stone
- The Weight of Feathers
- A Man for Amanda
- Dance Upon the Air
- Moon Island(Vampire Destiny Book 7)
- A game of chance(MacKenzie Family Saga series #5)
- Death Angel
- Loving Evangeline(Patterson-Cannon Family series #1)
- A Changing Land
- A Clandestine Corporate Affair
- A Gentleman Never Tells
- An Inheritance of Shame
- And Then She Fell
- Anything but Vanilla
- Anything for Her
- Anything You Can Do
- A Rancher's Pride
- A Stranger at Castonbury
- An Act of Persuasion
- An Unsinkable Love
- Angel's Rest
- Be Good A New Adult Romance (RE12)
- Beauty and the Blacksmith
- Beauty and the Sheikh
- Blood and Kisses
- Captain Durant's Countess
- Cardwell Ranch Trespasser
- Cavanaugh on Duty
- Chances Are
- Cinderella and the Sheikh
- Currant Creek Valley
- Cowboy Enchantment
- Dance With Me
- Dangerous Refuge
- Dicing with the Dangerous Lord
- Down and Dirty (Dare Me)
- Ein Mann fur alle Lagen