Ashes of Honor: An October Daye Novel

“Yet one more reason for me to be glad I was never a child of the nobility.” Daughter of a Firstborn, yes; noble, no. My mother doesn’t have a title. I guess no one ever thought she needed one.

“Here we are.” Li Qin stopped at a door that would have been almost tasteful, if it hadn’t been for the gilded crown molding that surrounded it, like a giant picture frame. It swung open at her touch, revealing a room that appeared to have been decorated entirely in white velvet. Six shades of white velvet. It was like a whipped cream explosion.

“Wow, this just gets classier all the time.” I started toward the door, and froze. The air currents in the hall had shifted when Li Qin opened the new room; not much, but enough that the natural airflow was bringing me different scents.

I smelled sycamore smoke and calla lilies.

“Chelsea,” I whispered.

“Toby?” Quentin looked at me, eyes wide. “What’s up?”

I didn’t answer. Instead, I dug a hand into my pocket, pulling out the Luidaeg’s Chelsea-chaser. It was blazing a bright fire-engine red. Quentin gasped, pulling out his own charm. It was the same color.

“She’s here.” I looked up, toward Li Qin. “Can you cover for me?”

“Until the time of your audience, yes. After that…” She shrugged helplessly. “I’ll do what I can, but I don’t recommend attracting the attention of her guards.”

“Yeah, I’ll do my best.” I reached into my other pocket, dug out the car keys, and tossed them to Quentin. “You know what to do.”

His mouth dropped open as my meaning hit home. “You can’t seriously mean to—”

“Go running off alone so that if one of us winds up getting snagged by Riordan’s invisible goons, the other one can keep looking for Chelsea and Raj? Yeah, I can.” I forced a smile. It didn’t feel sincere. I didn’t care. “Besides, what’s the worst that can happen? You keep Li safe. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

With that, I turned and walked away, letting the Luidaeg’s charm lead me deeper into Riordan’s knowe, where hopefully, Chelsea—and through her, Raj—would be waiting.





FOURTEEN


THE DEEPER I WENT into Riordan’s knowe, the more obvious it became that she took her decorating tips from a Vegas casino, with dashes of the Moulin Rouge thrown in to spice things up. There was no neon, probably because she couldn’t get it to stabilize in the Summerlands. Globes of witchlight and those damn green candles more than made up the difference.

There was one nice thing about the place: it was so garish that there was no chance I’d start going in a circle. I would have needed to be blind to wind up in the same room twice without knowing it. The Luidaeg’s charm pulled me onward, glow intensifying until it hurt to look directly at it. I caught hints and wisps of Chelsea’s magic, like the ghosts of sycamore trees and lilies. It was almost faint enough to be my imagination, but the charm was glowing, and I trusted the Luidaeg’s magic.

The carpets in the knowe muffled my footsteps, which meant they were doing the same for anyone else who happened to be wandering the halls. If I hadn’t been paying such close attention, I might have missed the sound of someone talking up ahead. I froze. I didn’t know who it was, but I knew that they weren’t with me; neither Li Qin nor Quentin would have been speaking that openly while they walked around Riordan’s knowe, and they probably wouldn’t have been wandering around unescorted.