Chimes at Midnight

May—who the Queen must have chosen because she was politically useless, but still important to me—raised the dagger and slit her own throat. Blood cascaded down her front like a waterfall, and her eyes widened, understanding coming back into them for a split second before she collapsed to the floor. I walked forward and knelt beside her, picking up the dagger and checking for a pulse at the same time. She didn’t have one.

“She’s dead,” I said, struggling to keep the horror and revulsion out of my voice. She would be fine—she had to be, she was a Fetch—but she was my friend, and her face was my own. I was going to be seeing that moment in my dreams for years. I raised my head and looked at the Queen, who was smirking at me. “You killed her. You violated Oberon’s Law, and for what? To make a point? You killed her. You know what I have to say to that?”

The Queen cocked her head to the side, saying something I didn’t hear. I smiled bitterly. She frowned. Apparently, that wasn’t the reaction she’d been expecting.

“You started it,” I said, and charged.

The Queen stared at me for a few precious seconds, too stunned to sing her next command. Then she opened her mouth, and the people around her moved.

Good. That was what I’d been hoping for. The Queen could command my allies, but she couldn’t grant them any free will—not if she wanted to keep her hold on them. That meant they were limited to the tactics she could think up. Sylvester had a brilliant military mind. He’d won his Duchy fairly. And now he was marching toward me like a windup soldier, sword raised, ready to start hacking.

At the moment, he wasn’t my primary concern. That honor went to Danny, who could crush me if he managed to get hold of me. I’d heal, but it would hurt like hell, and it would slow me down until my bones managed to set. Keeping away from him was my first priority. Getting to Arden was my second. Grianne reached me first. She drew her sword and swung for me with none of her normal grace. I ducked under the swing, letting her momentum carry her into Sylvester’s path. The two collided. I kept running.

Danny was charging toward me, the floor shaking with every step he took. On the plus side, this was causing the Queen’s other puppets to scatter in order to avoid him, which kept them from forming a shield wall between me and her. At the same time, this meant there was nothing between me and the homicidal Bridge Troll.

I turned and ran. “I hate this I hate this I hate this,” I chanted under my breath. Madden lunged out of nowhere, his teeth bared in a snarl. I grabbed Melly’s discarded broom from the floor, sparing a half-second’s thought for where Melly herself might be, and slammed the point of the handle into his exposed belly. He yelped and fell back. I kicked him hard in the muzzle, and he went down. Guilt swept over me. I was going to be apologizing for this fight for a while.

But I was almost there. Arden was right—

Tybalt. Standing in front of me, his incisors showing and his hands curled into claws as. I skidded to a stop. I couldn’t hear a damn thing, but I was certain he was snarling, that low, almost subsonic sound that served as the last warning before a Cait Sidhe attacked.

“You don’t want to do this,” I whispered.

He leapt.





TWENTY-NINE


THERE WAS NO WAY FOR ME to get out of the way once Tybalt was in motion; Cait Sidhe are almost too fast to see when they pounce. I had a split second to decide what I was going to do—and in that split second, I lowered both my knife and my stolen dagger, letting him crash into me. His claws found my neck, ripping through skin and muscle as if they were paper. Only the fact that I was slightly turned kept him from ripping my throat out.