Ashes of Honor: An October Daye Novel

Walther swore loudly in Welsh before demanding, “How did this happen? How was this missed?”


“Etienne likes smart girls who know how to hide their kids from the faeries, I guess. Walther, she’s missing, and we need to find her. Is there any way you can talk to Bridget, one faculty member to another, and see if you can get us a picture of Chelsea?”

“Chelsea’s disappearance—you don’t think it was a normal kidnapping, do you?”

“When a teenage Tuatha changeling disappears in broad daylight? No, I don’t. Her friends told Bridget that’s what happened—Chelsea just disappeared. If we’re lucky, she finally hit the epiphany that unlocked her magic, and she teleported somewhere without knowing how to get back.”

“If we’re not lucky?”

“Then Etienne’s teenage daughter has been stolen by persons unknown, and I have no idea why. You’ll talk to Bridget?”

“I will.”

“Good. Call me if you learn anything. Open roads, Walther.”

“Open roads,” he echoed, sounding far more subdued than he had at the beginning of the call, and hung up.

I replaced the receiver in the cradle and turned to find Tybalt watching me. “What?” I asked.

“Are you sure this isn’t a matter better left to your liege?”

The question startled me. I’d been expecting another request to talk about what happened in the alley. We’d have to talk about it eventually, since it was clear that Tybalt wasn’t going to let the matter drop until we did, but I wasn’t ready. “Etienne asked for my help.”

“It’s true that retrieval of lost things—children, kittens, trinkets—has become a specialty of yours. But are you sure you’re prepared for this particular mission?”

“Tybalt…”

He sighed. “I don’t want to make you angry. I merely fear for your safety.”

“I can do my job.”

“Really. You can follow a teenage changeling, stolen from her mortal parent, kept from her fae parent, and feel no personal connection that might cloud your judgment?”

I took a sharp breath, forcing myself to count to ten. Finally, when I was sure I could speak without screaming, I said, “This is nothing like what happened with Gillian.”

“Isn’t it?” Tybalt asked. I wanted to read his tone as mocking, needling me about what happened when Gillian was taken. I couldn’t do it. Maybe I’d have been able to do it once, but now, after all we’d been through—after all the times he’d been there when I needed him—I couldn’t see his words as anything but what they were: concerned.

“Maybe a little,” I said, relenting. “But I have to do this. You know that. I can’t just hand this off to someone else and trust that they’ll take care of it. I have to bring her home.”

“Sometimes I wonder if it’s because you spent so long lost that you must insist on bringing every lost thing home.” Tybalt pushed away from the counter, covering the distance between us in a single fluid motion. He was still wearing his human disguise. I hadn’t noticed it before, not with everything else going on. The smell of pennyroyal radiated from his skin. “You can’t save everyone and leave yourself lost, October. It isn’t fair. Not to you and not to the people who care about you.”

“I’m not lost, Tybalt,” I said. It was oddly hard to meet his eyes now that they registered as human. His irises were supposed to be malachite green, not muddy hazel, and his pupils were supposed to be oval, not round. “I know exactly where I am.”

A smile crossed his face. “If I believed that, I would walk away and never darken your door again. I can forgive you your foolishness only because I know how lost you are. But one day, you’ll have to come back home. When you do, I hope you’ll find me waiting.”

He stepped back abruptly, turning and walking out of the kitchen before I could answer. I stayed frozen where I was, the scent of hot pennyroyal teasing my nostrils.

“What the hell just happened?” I asked.