Ashes of Honor: An October Daye Novel

In answer, I dug out the charm the Luidaeg had provided and held it up, letting him see the way that it was glowing. Then I paused. “Hey. Get yours out. I want to see something.”


Quentin frowned, looking puzzled, but did as he was told. His charm was still dark. I leaned over and tapped it with my own charm. There was a chiming sound, and the charm in Quentin’s hand flared into sudden light. He yelped, nearly dropping it. I made a grab with my free hand, closing my fingers around his before he could let the charm go.

“Careful,” I cautioned.

“What did you do?”

“My charm was already tuned to Chelsea. Touching it to yours passed the tuning along.”

“You could’ve warned me,” he grumbled, giving the glowing charm a mistrustful look before sliding it back into his pocket. “Now what?”

“Now we take what we came for, and we go.” I turned back to Walther. “I swear I’m not trying to be rude, but I have two missing teenagers, and—”

“Two?” interrupted Quentin. “What do you mean, two?”

“Quentin—”

“Why was it so important that Tybalt had to come and see you? The Court of Cats does just fine without our help all the time. Who’s the other missing kid, Toby?”

The cold edge on Quentin’s questions told me he already knew the answer; he just wanted to hear me say it. I sighed. “Raj disappeared when Chelsea tore through the Court of Cats,” I said. “Tybalt thinks he was knocked through the portal she used to leave. He obviously can’t access the Shadow Roads wherever he is, or he’d be back by now. That’s why Tybalt thought I needed to be involved. Because I’m already looking for Chelsea, and Raj is…”

If he weren’t Cait Sidhe, I’d have claimed him as my squire a long damn time ago.

“…my responsibility as much as he is Tybalt’s,” I finished, with barely a pause. “We all know that. This is just making it a little closer to formal.” And when we got Raj back, we were going to make it all the way formal if we possibly could. I was already training both of them. I might as well be allowed to send them both to pick up Chinese food.

Quentin scowled. “We have to get him back.”

“I know.”

“This will help.” Walther stepped between us, holding a disposable Styrofoam cooler. “You have four jars of the dampening solution and four jars of the counter solution. Do not drop this. I don’t think I could handle mixing that stuff again.”

“Noted.” I tucked the Luidaeg’s charm into my pocket and took the cooler. “You do good work,” I said, avoiding the forbidden “thank you.”

“I like a challenge,” he replied, with a small smile. He knew what I wasn’t saying, and he appreciated it.

“Good, because I think we’re going to have plenty of challenges ahead of us. Quentin?” But he was already halfway to the door, not looking back as he made his way out of the room. I cast Walther an apologetic look and followed him. Not only was time something we couldn’t afford to waste, Quentin was the only one who knew where the car was.

Walther walked me as far as his office door and stopped there, waving tiredly as Quentin stalked down the length of the hall and I followed. Soon Walther was out of sight, and soon after that, we were outside and Quentin was charging down a gravel path toward the faculty parking lot.

I didn’t dare run with the cooler full of jars, so I settled for walking as fast as I could. When it became clear that I wasn’t going to catch up with him like that, I stopped, tucking the cooler under one arm as I placed the first two fingers of my now-free hand in my mouth and whistled shrilly. Every visible head—human, canine, and squirrel—turned toward me. Every head but one. Quentin just stopped where he was, hands fisted at his sides, head down.

He stayed there as I walked the rest of the short distance between us. Once I pulled up alongside him, he started to walk again, pacing me.

“We’re going to find him.”

Silence.

“Tybalt wouldn’t have told me Raj was missing if he didn’t think we could help.”