Chimes at Midnight

I dropped the dagger, aware that I was mirroring May the way she’d always mirrored me, and clapped a hand over the wound. There was no way to stop the gushing blood, and so I didn’t try. Instead, I took a staggering step forward, trying to look like I was about to collapse. It wasn’t hard. With the amount of blood that I was losing, even my body was having trouble putting itself back together.

I could feel the flesh growing back beneath my fingers. I kept my hand clamped down, keeping the Queen from seeing my recovery. She didn’t know how fast I healed. Why should she? I was her little changeling enemy, and I was no threat, especially not now, wounded, still staggering toward her like there was a damn thing left for me to accomplish.

Arden hadn’t moved. I reached out with the hand that held my knife, trying to make the motion look like a supplication. And then, before the Queen could react, I sliced a narrow cut across Arden’s shoulder, grabbed her, and pressed my lips to the wound.

Using Nolan’s magic while he was asleep had been hard. Using Arden’s while she was enthralled was a cakewalk by comparison. I had enough time to see the Queen start to rise, an expression of shock and fury on her face, before I was falling into the hole I’d forced Arden to open, hauling the Princess with me—

—and landed on my ass, Arden still clasped firmly in my arms. She began to struggle almost immediately. I didn’t let her go, instead looking around to try and figure out where we were.

The fight was nowhere to be seen. I was sitting in the middle of a freshly-polished hardwood floor. There was a four-poster bed nearby, carved to match the wardrobe I’d seen in Arden and Nolan’s basement home. Arden’s flailing nearly caught me in the chin. I let her go, rolling to my feet, and raised a hand to check the status of my wounded throat. It didn’t feel pretty, but at least it felt nearly intact.

Arden was shouting something. I shook my head. “I can’t hear you, I have sap in my ears.” Digging it out with bloody fingers was no easy matter, but I managed.

“—that bitch, she just started singing and we were all putty in her hands,” Arden snarled.

“That’s what Sirens do,” I said. My voice sounded strained. Tybalt’s claws must have nicked my vocal cords. That said something truly disturbing about how deep they’d gone. “She’s part Siren.”

Arden paused, eyes going wide. “Oh, sweet Titania, your sister . . .”

“Will be fine. May can’t be killed, remember? She’s probably totally recovered by now.” I wasn’t as sure of that as I was trying to sound. I’d never known her not to have a pulse before. “We can’t worry about her now. I have Nolan, and he’s safe, but we have to stop the Queen. Can you help me?”

“That depends on whether or not we’re letting you leave here breathing,” said a sweet, familiar voice behind me. I turned. Melly and Ormond were standing there, armed with a mop and a broadsword respectively.

It says something about Hobs that I was more worried about the mop. “You got away!”

Melly’s eyes widened. “October, your throat.”

Only Ormond remained completely calm. “Prove it’s you.”

“I’m the one who stole all the peppermint brownies before the Midwinter Festival,” I said, without hesitation.

“Which year?” Ormond shot back.

“Uh, every year.”

To my relief, he chuckled and lowered his sword. Melly did the same with her mop. “You are you. But October, your throat . . .”

“The Queen seized control of everyone else.” I frowned. “Why didn’t she get the two of you?”

“I ran when I heard the singing start, and I dragged young Melly with me,” said Ormond. “We’re deep enough into the knowe that she can’t reach us here, and we cleared the branches off as many of the remaining booby-traps as we could.”

“So anyone trying to follow won’t know where they are,” I said. “Slick.” Also damned dangerous: the Queen was controlling our friends and allies. If she controlled them into one of Oleander’s traps, they’d probably wind up dead.

“I’m really sorry to interrupt this reunion, but we need to be reclaiming my knowe and my Kingdom right about now,” said Arden. “October. What is it that you wanted me to do?”