Chimes at Midnight

Worrying about what I’d done to myself could come later. For the moment, I had allies to worry about. “I’m going to get you some water,” I said.

To my surprise, Dianda shook her head. “No. There’s bound to be something in here,” she waved a hand to indicate the treasury, “that makes water out of nothing, or never dries up, or whatever. I’ll find it. Go save your cat.”

Tybalt. Fear washed over me, and I nodded. “All right,” I said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” I didn’t wait for her response. I was off and running, my feet squelching through the blood trail I’d left earlier. Even in her current form, Dianda could fight off any guards that came for her. She was a Duchess in the Undersea; they based titles off the ability to hold them. She’d be fine. Tybalt needed me.

How long had it been? How long had it taken me to change my blood back to normal, how long for Dianda to pull herself across the treasury floor to where I was huddled around the hope chest? How long? I ran, heading as fast as I could for the dungeon door. My feet slid on the blood-slick stone floor. I slammed my hip against a corner and kept on running, feeling the pain first spread through me and then recede, pulled back by the power in my blood.

I couldn’t properly enjoy my body being my own again. I was too busy running, my mind already playing through the worst possible scenarios. Most of them were terrifyingly simple: I’d get there and the night-haunts would be gone, and the next time I saw the flock, there would be a diminutive figure with Tybalt’s eyes among their number.

The door to the dungeon was unguarded; the guards Dianda and I had taken down were gone. Whether gone meant “away” or “down,” I didn’t know, and didn’t care. I yanked the door open and ran into the dark without care for how badly I might hurt myself. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting there in time to save him.

The door to Dianda’s cell was open. That was a good sign: if the guards had been down here, they would have closed it. I kept running until I turned the final corner and stopped dead. The bottom seemed to drop out of the world, leaving me alone in the darkness. Tybalt was there, unmoving, lying in exactly the position he’d been in when I left him.

But the night-haunts were gone.

Moving slowly now, like the air had been replaced by thick goo, I walked toward him. He still looked fae. Night-haunts usually replaced the dead with human-seeming shells. Would they have bothered with that here, in a knowe, where his body would never be seen by the mortal world? It didn’t make sense, from a logical standpoint—but since when was Faerie logical? Maybe they’d left one just to mess with me.

“It isn’t fair,” I whispered.

“It never is,” replied Devin’s voice. I whipped around to find the two night-haunts hovering behind me. Connor’s haunt wouldn’t meet my eyes.

I managed to fight the urge to slap them out of the air. “Is he alive?”

“For now,” said the Devin-haunt, looking me up and down. “I see you’ve found yourself again. Our part in things is done. Whether he lives or not, you owe us.”

“I know,” I said, and turned my back on them. I walked the last few steps to Tybalt, kneeling beside him on the cold stone floor, and reached out to stroke his cheek. My fingers left bloody trails behind them. “Hey,” I said. “Hey, you need to wake up. It’s time to save the Prince, defeat the evil Queen, and go on a vacation. I hear Hawaii is nice this time of year. I’ll go there with you. I’ll go anywhere with you. Come on, kitty-cat. Wake up.”