Chimes at Midnight

“Yeah . . . are you sure there’s a bookstore there?” He at least had the good grace to look faintly abashed as he continued, “You might have dreamt it.”


Anger rose in my throat like bile. I swallowed it back down and said, “I can understand why you might be concerned about that, but Tybalt and I went to Borderlands before I was hit with the evil pie.” No matter how many times I said “evil pie,” it never started sounding normal. “The store is there, it’s just hidden from anyone who claims allegiance to the Mists. Arden has been hiding there for a while. It may not be where she went to ground, but it’s the best lead we have.”

“And if she’s not there?” rumbled Danny.

Her magic smelled like redwood trees and blackberries. So did the place where I had heard her name spoken to open a shallowing that had been holding itself closed for decades. “If she’s not there, we head for Muir Woods,” I said. “She’s connected to the shallowing there, somehow. She might try running for it. It seems like less of a sure bet, but again. We take the leads we have when we’re dealing with something like this.”

“I don’t like it,” said Danny.

“Join the club,” I replied.

We were in the strange hours of the night, where traffic became unpredictable, here heavy, there nonexistent. The route Danny was plotting took us straight through San Francisco, ignoring the daily logic of the city in favor of a more personal approach. He never slowed down. Somehow, he managed not to run any red lights or hit any pedestrians, either. Those Gremlin charms were worth their weight in whatever he had paid for them.

When we reached Valencia, he took his weight off the gas, reducing our speed until we were almost obeying the law. “Now where?” he demanded.

“Hang on.” I took the flask of fireflies out of my pocket, using my finger to coax one of the brightly-shining insects out. Carefully, I transferred it to his shoulder, where it settled into a pose of apparent contentment. “Look down the street until you see something you don’t recognize, and park there.”

“What?” Danny frowned at me before turning to scan Valencia. “That’s about the dumbest thing I’ve ever—holy shit, girl, there’s a bookstore there. What the hell? When did they build a bookstore?”

“Since the building is like a hundred years old, a while ago,” I said. “Can you park?”

“I’m on it.” He twisted the wheel abruptly enough to make the tires squeal in protest. Somehow, this ended with us wedged into a space that had just opened in front of the Phoenix, the Irish pub almost directly across the street from Borderlands. “We’re here,” he said smugly, and turned off the engine.

Other things that had happened during our unexpected hairpin turn in the middle of a San Francisco street: my hands were pressed flat against the dashboard, although I didn’t remember putting them there, and Quentin was bent almost double, his arms wrapped against my seat’s headrest. I forced the muscles in my arms to unlock. It wasn’t easy. Adrenaline had everything confused, and my body really wasn’t interested in listening to me.

“Danny?”

“Yeah, Tobes?”

“If you kill us trying to protect me, Tybalt will figure out a way to get through that skin of yours and introduce you to your own internal organs. He’s Cait Sidhe. He can do it.”

To my surprise, Danny laughed. I blinked. He grinned. “See, as long as you’re capable of gettin’ pissed at me, I know you’re gonna be okay. You may not like what comes between here and actually getting to that point, and the rest of us will pretty much hate it, ’cause you can be nasty when you want to, but you’re gonna be okay.”

I blinked again. Then I smiled. “I didn’t think of it that way.”

“’Course not. You’re the hero. You’re never supposed to think about your own mental health.” Danny wrapped a human disguise around himself and slid out of the car before I could answer him. Stifling a snicker, Quentin did the same.