Ashes of Honor: An October Daye Novel

“Canadian,” he replied. His stomach growled. “Hungry Canadian. We still haven’t eaten.”


“Believe me, I noticed. I’m the one who had to bleed for the Luidaeg’s latest special project, remember? As soon as we get these things attuned to Chelsea, we’ll hit the nearest drive-through and buy a sack of breakfast sandwiches. Okay?” Breakfast sandwiches and coffee. I wasn’t going to do anyone any good if I fell asleep at the wheel and drove into a tree.

“Okay,” said Quentin.

I tossed him my cell phone. “Here. Call Walther. Let him know we’re coming back to Berkeley. We don’t need a picture anymore, but if he can mix anything that would work as a temporary, nonharmful magic suppressant, I’d love to hear about it.” If we could shut down Chelsea’s ability to open doors for a little while, maybe we’d be able to catch her before she gated herself away. And if whoever took her was on her trail, well…

I felt sorry for them. I was cranky, I was tired, I needed caffeine, and people who kidnap teenage girls piss me off. Call it my way of working through residual anger issues from when Raysel grabbed my daughter, but if I got my hands on Chelsea’s kidnappers, they were going to learn that I don’t play nicely with people who mess with kids.

Quentin dialed Walther’s number and must have reached him, because a few seconds later, he identified himself and started explaining the situation. I tuned him out, focusing on the road instead of my squire. I knew I didn’t need to monitor him. If you’d asked me three years ago whether I would trust my status updates to a teenage boy, I would have looked at you as if you were insane. These days, I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

Besides, we were crossing the Bay Bridge, and I’ve always been a little paranoid about that particular stretch of road. Something about being on a giant iron structure suspended over the water rubs me the wrong way.

“Toby?” Quentin lowered the phone. “Walther wants to know how long the power damper needs to work.”

“I don’t know. Long enough for us to keep Chelsea from turning the fabric of the universe into pudding. An hour? A day?”

“Got it.” He relayed this to Walther. There was a pause before he lowered the phone again, and said, “He can do a year if you don’t want it to hurt her. That’s sort of the minimum. Anything that doesn’t last as long will probably mess her up pretty bad at the same time.”

A year was a long time to strip someone of her magic. On the other hand…if Chelsea decided to become human, she wasn’t going to have magic anymore, no matter what. If she chose to become fae, a year wouldn’t matter one way or the other. “Tell him a year should be fine. Anything that lets us get close enough to her to make this stop.”

“Okay.” He raised the phone again, and I returned my attention to the road. My cell phone landed in my lap less than a minute later. It bounced once before wedging itself between my knees. “He’s on it,” said Quentin.

“Good. Did he say when we could pick it up?”

“No. He just laughed and hung up on me.”

I nodded. “Even better.” Working with me has had the unexpected side effect of teaching Walther that sometimes you not only don’t get sufficient time to prepare, you don’t get any time at all. I liked to tell myself it was good for him. It’s too easy for purebloods to get complacent about time management—when you have forever, what’s the point of worrying about whether or not you’ll get your library books back on time?