Chimes at Midnight

“She deserves a life!”


“She’s not human! No matter what you do to her, no matter how deep you go, Faerie will always know her as its own. Do you understand? You can’t free her. All you can do is make her defenseless. She’ll belong to Faerie until she dies. You’re making sure that happens sooner.”

She looks at me, my pretty Amy, and her broken heart is shining in her eyes. Finally, she shakes her head, and speaks. “So be it,” she says, and I know.

I know she’s given up again.

The blood haze was starting to loosen, and with it, the bands constricting my lungs and gut. I took a great, gasping breath, and the bands loosened further. Scrabbling along the door with one hand, I found the handle and wrenched it open. Only my still-fastened seatbelt stopped me from fully spilling out into the street.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Massive hands were suddenly there to support me as Danny interrupted my fall and hoisted me back into the seat. “What’n the hell was that all about? You need a cup of coffee or somethin’?”

“Coffee doesn’t cure all ills, Danny.” My hands were steady enough now that I could undo the seatbelt. Score one for the Luidaeg and her weirdly invasive style of magic. Using Danny’s arm to steady myself, I stood. “I haven’t had a cup of coffee since the pie.”

“Huh,” he said, looking impressed. “Maybe you can kick caffeine and goblin fruit at the same time.”

“I doubt it.” I looked across the car to Quentin. He was pale, and his lips were pressed into a thin line—something he only did when he was really concerned. “I’m okay. I just wasn’t prepared for the remedy the Luidaeg made me to kick as hard as it did.”

He blinked as he looked at me, and said, “Maybe you should fix your hair.”

“What?” I reached up to feel it with one hand. “It’s my hair. It’s fine. It always looks like this.”

“Yeah, but your ears don’t.”

Now it was my turn to blink. I dropped my hand lower, to where the edge of my right ear was just visible through the tangled strands of my hair. It was still mostly rounded . . . but the edge was more pointed than it had been at the start of the evening. “Oh,” I said.

“Yeah,” Quentin said.

My magic—which was currently way too willing to act outside my conscious control—must have decided I needed help focusing on the Luidaeg’s borrowed memory, and so inched a little closer to fae. Not enough closer; I still couldn’t taste Danny or Quentin’s heritage, and I knew from the depth of the shadows across the street that if I lost the firefly, I’d be fae-blind once again. But enough to stop the shaking.

Enough to buy me a little more time.

“Luidaeg, you are a fabulous monster, and an even better bitch,” I muttered.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing.” I smoothed my hair down over my ears, looking back to Quentin. “Better?”

“Better,” he said. “You still don’t need, um . . .” He waved his hands, encompassing the length of my body.

I decided to show mercy for once. Taking my hand off Danny’s arm, I said, “I’m still human-looking enough that I don’t need to worry about a full-body disguise, huh?”

Cheeks flaming red, Quentin nodded.

“Okay. At least we know what we’re working with. Come on. Quentin, you need to stay close to either me or Danny, since otherwise I don’t think you’re going to be able to see the place.” I could have given him a firefly of his own, but I was starting to do the mental math, and I didn’t like the numbers. I’d started with ten. We lost one finding Arden; I had one on me, and so did Danny. They could fly away at any time. As long as they were my only reliable way of seeing into Faerie, I was going to hold onto the seven I still had with an iron fist.