Ashes of Honor: An October Daye Novel

“Yeah?”


“Here.” I tossed him my phone. “Call April. I want you to ask whether she’s noticed anything unusual in the last couple of days. Weird lights where they’re not supposed to be, unfamiliar magical signatures, stuff like that.”

Quentin blinked. “You think we’re going to Tamed Lightning?”

I indicated the highway with a wave of my hand. “It’s starting to look that way.”

“Huh,” he said, and dialed.

The County of Tamed Lightning is located in the mortal city of Fremont. Like many more recently founded fiefdoms, they don’t have a proper knowe; instead, their holdings are consolidated in a shallowing, which also serves as the corporate headquarters for their software design company. It’s a County filled with crazy idealists, and they’re weird even by the most generous of Faerie standards. I met them when they had a small serial killer problem, one that got their former Countess—Sylvester’s niece, January—killed. Her adopted daughter, April, took over, and has been running the whole mess ever since.

It probably says something about me that I find dealing with April O’Leary soothing. She’s the only one of her kind in Faerie, and she thinks most of the traditions and rituals that control the other purebloods are ridiculous. Sometimes it’s nice to have someone look you in the eye and tell you that no, it doesn’t matter whether you say “thank you” or not; it matters whether you remember to pay the DSL bill. Really, I like just about everyone at Tamed Lightning, even Alex, despite the fact that he once used his Gean-Cannah fascination powers to seduce me.

My relationships are complicated, even when they’re with people I think of as allies.

Quentin lowered the phone. The Luidaeg’s charm was still glowing red. “April says things have been moving around when no one was looking for the last several days, and she wants to know how we knew. She also says they’ll set up two of the employee break rooms for us, in case we need a place to crash.”

“Last time we slept there, you got kidnapped and nearly thrown off a catwalk. Oh, and shot. We mustn’t forget the part where you got shot.”

“Yeah, but they had really good donuts, so I guess it balances out.”

I snorted laughter. My stomach grumbled, reminding me that while Quentin might have had breakfast, I still hadn’t. “Donuts would be awesome right about now. I’ll hit a drive-through as soon as that thing takes us off the freeway.”

Quentin looked at the glowing charm. “Do you think this thing will lead us to Raj, too?”

I hate lying to him. I try not to do it when I have any other choice. “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m hoping so. If not, it should lead us to Chelsea, and that means we’ll be able to get her to help us figure out where he wound up.” I took my eyes of the road long enough to shoot him a reassuring glance. “I’m sure he’s fine. Raj is tough, and he managed to get away from Blind Michael without my help. He’s not going to let a little unexpected teleportation throw him.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“So do I,” I said. I started to look back to the road, and paused, the rearview mirror catching my eye. I frowned. “Quentin? That car behind us. How long has it been there?”