Chimes at Midnight

Tybalt laughed a little, shaking his head. “No. But you would eventually ask me to. I am . . . not sure . . . I could stop myself from wanting to protect you. I want to protect you anyway, but normally you can do that on your own. Now . . .”


“I wanted to be human once,” I admitted. “I wanted to sleep at night, and age like the people I saw on the street, and not have to worry about being carried off by a Kelpie just because it was hungry and I was in the wrong place to stay out of its way. I mean, the Kelpies would have still been there, I just wouldn’t have known, but . . . that’s not the point. People change. I changed. I have a life in Faerie. I’m not giving it up for anything, and definitely not because of something as stupid as getting hit with a pie.” My stomach clenched again. I winced. “Okay. You need to let go of me now.”

“October? What’s wrong?”

“Seriously, let me go.” Tybalt released my arm. I dug the baggie of blood gems Walther had made out of my pocket and popped two of them into my mouth. It barely took the edge off. I didn’t care. That was going to have to be enough, because I would need to be in way worse straits before I took another piece of the Luidaeg’s blood.

“Toby?”

I raised a finger, closing my eyes as I waited for the snarling in my stomach to subside. Tybalt was watching me with open anxiety when I opened them again. I sighed. “Better, for now. We need to move. Are you sticking with us?”

“Unless you have another fool’s errand for me to undertake,” he said.

“The only fool’s errand I have left is deposing a Queen, installing a Princess in her place, and fixing my,” I waved a hand to indicate my too-human body, “little problem.” I started for the dresser where I kept my iron knife, safely muffled in a bundle of yarrow branches and silk.

“Have you considered that curing your addiction may result in humanity no longer being an option for you?”

The question was mild. I stiffened but didn’t turn as I opened the drawer and started moving sweaters aside. “I did.”

“And?”

“And I’d rather not give up my humanity—not yet—but if that’s what has to happen, then that’s what I’ll do.” I untied the cord that held the silk in place and began unrolling the bundle across the top of the dresser. “If I come away from this completely fae, then so be it.”

“Ah.” Tybalt packed an amazing amount of relief into that single syllable.

The last of the silk came away, revealing my iron knife in all its menacing simplicity. There was nothing splendid about it: it wasn’t ornate or decorative. It was just a piece of metal, designed for killing the fae. And it was very, very good at its job.

“What, you thought you’d get rid of me that easily?” I slid the iron blade into place in the holster around my waist, relaxing a little. Using iron against the fae isn’t something to be done lightly. Iron dulls magic and causes iron poisoning, which can be fatal. It’s the sort of thing you only do when you have to. But if the Queen’s guard came for me again, they wouldn’t find me quite so helpless. “Sweetheart, you’re stuck with me until you decide not to be.”

“At this point, if your foul attitude and utter lack of manners were going to drive me away, they would have done so already.”

“There, you see? Nothing to worry about.” I stripped off my ripped, bloody jeans and pulled a clean pair out of the dresser, stepping into them without bothering to bandage my knees. They weren’t bleeding anymore, and at this point, a little pain could only focus me. I was either going to get back to normal or die before infection could set in.

“October, if there is one thing I have learned over the course of my association with you, it is that there is always the potential for something else to worry about.”