Quentin looked at me, clearly amused. “What, you’re not my mother?”
“Thankfully, no.” We looked oddly similar with our human disguises on—we both had blue eyes, although his were dulled down from his true appearance, while mine were oversaturated compared to their natural colorless gray. His dishwater blond hair was lightened from its natural bronze, while mine was barely changed. As long as we looked human, we looked enough alike to pass.
“Okay, big sis.”
“Don’t push it.” I climbed out of the car. The air was warmer than it was in San Francisco, but not by much; the smell of the sea and the eucalyptus trees was replaced by freshly mowed grass and wood-burning fireplaces. Everything was silent. This was suburbia, and it was a whole different world from the one we were used to.
“We passed a high school about a mile back,” I said. “Think we should check it out?”
“Are you going to care if I say ‘no’?”
“No.”
“Then yes.”
“Good squire. Come on.” We walked down the sidewalk, stepping over cracks and around broken pavement where tree roots had managed to break through. There was something comforting about the silence between us. It was free of subtext and accusations and expectations. Quentin just wanted me to be there for him. So far, I was managing that much, if not much more.
Of course, I wouldn’t have been managing anything if Tybalt hadn’t interrupted those drug dealers. Maybe Tybalt was right when he said that we needed to have a conversation about the way I’d been acting lately. Maybe—
The lingering scent of magic in front of the Ames house hit me so hard that I stopped, staggering backward as if someone had punched me in the stomach. Quentin stopped in turn, his expression broadcasting confusion and alarm. “Toby?”
“Hang on.” I raised a hand to quiet him, taking deep, slow breaths as I tried to figure out what I was standing in the middle of. He stopped talking but didn’t move away.
My mother, Amandine, raised me as one of the Daoine Sidhe. I didn’t find out until recently that she was lying the whole time. She was Firstborn, the daughter of Oberon and an unnamed woman, and I was the first of a new race of fae—the Dóchas Sidhe. Exactly what we were for was yet to be determined. But if there was one thing we were made to do, it was blood magic, and the unique scents that accompany each person’s spellcasting are fundamentally tied to who and what they are—their blood.
Etienne’s signature was cedar smoke and lime juice. This scent was similar enough that I would have known the caster was related even if we hadn’t been looking for his daughter. Not cedar smoke, though; this was sycamore smoke. It was covered by a delicate veneer of calla lily flowers, softening and sweetening it. The trace was complicated, and got more complicated as I looked deeper. Some of it was fresh, but some of it was old—months, even years of little spells overlaying this one spot. Chelsea had been coming into her powers for a while before she disappeared. That wasn’t a good sign.
“Oak and ash,” I breathed.
“Toby?”
I shook my head. “We’re on the right track. This is the way she walks to school.”
“Yes, it is,” said a voice behind me—female, with the faintest trace of an Irish accent, as though the speaker had been away from home for so long that her roots were just another story. “Now would you like to tell me what you’re doing out here, or shall I be calling the police now?”
There are times when I think the universe is only happy when it has an excuse to make me miserable. “We’d rather you didn’t do that, if you don’t mind,” I said, turning. The woman on the sidewalk about six feet away was wearing a blue bathrobe and holding a cast iron frying pan in one hand. “Is there a problem?”
“Etienne sent you, didn’t he?”
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