Chimes at Midnight

There was a pause while Tybalt finished swallowing. Then, as he walked toward me, he asked, “Is it safe to give liquids to an elf-shot victim? I’d fear drowning.”


“Drowning is a possibility, death by iron is a guarantee. Hell, maybe we’ll get lucky, and treating iron poisoning will treat elf-shot, too.” I held out my hand for the flagon. “Open his mouth.”

“All right.” Tybalt crouched on Nolan’s other side, putting the flagon into my hand before reaching over and prying Nolan’s mouth open.

“I don’t know how aware you are, but please try not to drown,” I said, and pressed the flagon to his lips, pouring just a little into his mouth before gesturing for Tybalt to close it. “Tilt his head back, see if he swallows.”

Tybalt tilted Nolan’s head back.

Nolan swallowed.

“Well, how about that,” I said. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

Working together, we were able to feed Nolan the rest of the liquid in the flagon. Hopefully, that would be enough, and if not, he’d at least be able to hold up until we were in a position to offer further treatment. He didn’t show any signs of waking up, either during the process or after. Guess that was too much to hope for. I put the cruet into my pocket and tucked the flagon under my arm before helping Tybalt lift Nolan off the floor. Now that we weren’t dealing with an entire room full of iron, carrying him was a hell of a lot easier.

“Where now?” asked Tybalt.

“Find Dianda, punch the asshole that locked us in the dungeon, get the hell out of here,” I said, and started walking.

The hall outside the treasury was deserted, but it wasn’t difficult to know which way to go: Dianda hadn’t been wearing shoes in her bipedal form. Her footprints were the only ones that were both bloody and bare. We followed them through the halls of the Queen’s knowe, until we came to a pair of slightly-ajar double doors. There was only silence from the other side.

Cautiously, I pushed one of the doors further open, and found myself peering at a stretch of the Queen’s receiving hall.

“There you are.” It was Dianda’s voice. She sounded perfectly fine. Restless, but fine. “I was getting bored.”

I turned toward her voice, and blinked. She was sitting on a plain wooden chair, with seven of the Queen’s guards behind her. The one who’d been the first to swear fealty to Arden was among them, I noted. Six more, including the man who’d tried to leave us for dead in the dungeon, were unconscious and tied up on the floor in front of her.

“. . . okay, that works,” I said. “We have a treatment for iron poisoning, and we have the Prince. We need to get moving. Does anybody have a car?” Treatment or not, I wasn’t trusting the Shadow Roads until I’d seen Tybalt have a good night’s sleep, and I doubted my ability to make Nolan teleport me more than a short distance. His control wasn’t good when he was asleep.

“I do,” said one of the guards, a diminutive female Glastig with a faint Welsh accent.

“Okay, we have a car. What’s your name?”

“Lowri.”

I paused, looking at her assessingly. “Were you recruited out of Silences?”

“After the fall, yes.” She met my eyes without hesitation.

“Great.” If she was a former member of the guard in Silences, she was a lot less likely to be loyal to the Queen, and that made it safer to get into a car with her. “Come on, guys. Let’s blow this Popsicle stand.”

Dianda frowned. “What’s a Popsicle?”

I sighed. “Okay, see, that would have been a dramatic exit, but you had to go and spoil it. Come on. We need to get to Muir Woods before the fighting ends.”

“Why?” asked one of the guards.

“I figure either they need us, or I’ll get to see the bitch whose house this is,” I indicated the room, “getting her ass handed to her. Either way I win.”

“I’m out of things to hit anyway,” said Dianda, and stood. “Let’s go.”

Leaving the six guards behind with their former fellows, Dianda, Tybalt, and I followed the Glastig out of the hall, still carrying Nolan between us. It was time to get to Muir Woods. It was time for us to end this.





TWENTY-EIGHT