Ashes of Honor: An October Daye Novel

Eighteen



Nineteen



Twenty



Twenty-One



Twenty-Two



Twenty-Three



Twenty-Four



Twenty-Five



Twenty-Six



Twenty-Seven





ONE


June 3rd, 2012



So shall she leave her blessedness to one,

When heaven shall call her from this blessed darkness,

Who from the sacred ashes of her honor

Shall star-like rise…

—William Shakespeare, King Henry VIII





THE NIGHT SKY OVER SAN FRANCISCO was a patchwork mixture of starry black and cloudy gray, all of it washed out by the ambient light drifting up from the city below. It was a tourist’s dream of California summer, perfect as a postcard—and like all postcards, it wasn’t telling the full story. I pressed myself in closer to the wall of the alley, one hand on my knife, and waited.

I didn’t have to wait for long. Voices drifted down the alley, speaking in the weird mix of whisper and shout that teenagers have used since the dawn of time when trying to be subtle. There was nothing subtle about these kids, but they would never have believed that. They were playing things oh-so-cool, and they thought they were untouchable. In a perfect world, they would have been. In a perfect world, they would have been allowed to have their little rebellions and take their little risks, and nothing would ever have touched them.

We don’t live in a perfect world. We never have. And on nights like this one, it seems like we never will.

The kids approaching my hiding spot didn’t know it, but I’d been watching them for weeks, ever since I took a trip downtown to investigate reports of a courtier selling pieces of his liege’s treasury. The rumors turned out to be true—he got banished, I got paid, and nobody walked away happy—but that wasn’t the worst of it.

On the way to a meeting with his fence, the courtier had kicked aside a glass jar that someone had left discarded near the base of a garbage can. It fell on its side and rolled to a stop against a nearby wall. The smell of its contents assaulted my nostrils, and I immediately forgot about my job. I had something far more dangerous to worry about.

I crept toward the jar as cautiously as I would have approached a venomous snake, finally crouching a few feet away. I could see smears of purple clinging to the glass—not that I needed the visual. This close, the smell was unmistakable. No changeling who’s ever lived on the wrong side of the tracks could fail to recognize the smell of goblin fruit, even if we’d never smelled it before. And, Oberon help me, I’d smelled it before.

Goblin fruit grows naturally in some realms of Faerie. It’s a sweet narcotic for purebloods, intoxicating without being physically addictive—although it’s definitely habit-forming. Anything that changes the way you feel is habit-forming, as anyone who’s ever dealt with someone who says, “It’s not addictive, really,” while reaching for their next fix can tell you. A pureblood with a serious goblin-fruit problem may spend a lot of time high, but that’s about it. They’ll still be able to do their jobs, maintain relationships, and put up a good front.