Chimes at Midnight

I grinned. “That’s why you love me.”


“Among many other reasons.” He moved forward with the lithe, inhuman speed that was the birthright of the Cait Sidhe, slinging an arm around my waist before I had a chance to react. Then, without any further comment, he leaned in and kissed me, sweet and slow and tasting of pennyroyal. The heat of his lips chased away all concern for the chill of the Shadow Roads—and as always, the feeling of his hip pressed against mine made me want to forget about everything else and request a trip back to the house for an hour or so of well-earned relaxation.

Sadly, this wasn’t the time. He knew it as well as I did, because he pulled away just as the kiss was on the verge of deepening into something more. My ears were burning, and his pupils were extended to their fullest size—

Shit. “We’re getting too comfortable in places like this,” I said, raising my hand to my lips and wiping the taste of pennyroyal onto my fingers before dragging them through the air, filling them with shadows. “No guarantee the firefly comes out in the Summerlands. Suit up.”

Tybalt blinked. Then he swore and set about weaving his own human disguise. For a few seconds, the air around us was a perfumer’s nightmare of mixed scents, copper and musk, pennyroyal and fresh-cut grass. Then the magic dissipated, and two apparent humans stood where two obvious non-humans had been only a moment before.

“Better,” I said, glancing down. The firefly on my collar was still visible. It had been enchanted by the Luidaeg. I would just have to trust her enchantments extended to making them difficult for humans to recognize as unusual. Bugs are easier to explain than pointy-eared people with inhuman eyes, anyway. I lifted my head. “Ready when you are.”

“Finally,” Tybalt said, a rolling chuckle underneath the word. Then he took my hand and pulled me into the darkness of the Shadow Roads.

The Shadow Roads are always going to be a mystery to me, since I’m not Cait Sidhe, and it’s not like I can stop and examine them while we’re running through the dark, trying to outpace the limits of our lungs. This much I know: that the darkness there is so absolute that even Cait Sidhe can’t see for more than a few feet in any direction—enough to navigate, but not enough to let them know what might be surrounding them. That when we run there, we seem to be surrounded by absolute nothingness, but there’s ground beneath our feet, and we never run in a straight line. That it’s cold, and airless, and if it weren’t for Tybalt, I would die there.

Hopefully, I wasn’t consigning the first of our fireflies to the same fate. Its light was almost blinding in the absolute dark. I slid the forefinger of my free hand under the creature, brought it to my quickly-freezing lips, and spent precious air whispering, “Find Arden,” before I flicked my wrist and sent the firefly flying. It fell, dropping well below the level of what I thought of as the ground. I stopped running, pulling Tybalt to a halt. I hadn’t been sure my plan would work, but I hadn’t expected to send the firefly quite so quickly to its death—

A blast of light like a signal flare rose from beneath us, leveled out at eye level, and raced into the distance. Tybalt, once he recovered from a split-second’s-worth of shock, was almost as fast. He took off running, and I ran alongside him, letting him make up for my slightly less impressive speed by dragging me in his wake. Nonsensically, I wished I’d thought to ask the Luidaeg for some roller skates. It would have been easier on my feet.

We ran long enough that my eyelashes were sticking together and my lungs were one constant, aching burn, screaming out their need for air. I ignored the pain as best I could, focusing on following the firefly through the dark.