Chimes at Midnight

“Absolutely. I absolve you of all involvement, at least for right now. Just please, please, get me the Duke.”


“Hang on,” said Etienne. There was a thump as he set the receiver down. It wasn’t loud, but it was loud enough I might have missed the soft sound of Tybalt’s footsteps, had they not been accompanied by the pennyroyal and musk scent of his magic—and the maddened shrieks of the pixies, who were clearly unhappy about the ongoing invasion of their territory.

I turned. Tybalt was behind me, holding Nolan in a fireman’s carry. He was winded, and as I watched, he lowered the unconscious Prince to the floor, half-propping him against the wall. “Remind me, next time I agree to something like this, that I am an idiot and should not be trusted to make these decisions,” he said, wheezing.

I grimaced. Before I could reply, the phone was picked up, and Sylvester said, “October? What’s wrong?”

Moment of truth time. I took a deep breath, and answered his question with a question. “If I had reason to believe one of our local nobles was holding their demesne illegitimately, would you want to know?” That should be vague enough that he wouldn’t jump straight to “you mean the Queen.” I hoped.

Silence until, finally, he asked, “October, where are you?”

“I’m at Goldengreen.” I paused before adding the next piece of the night’s news. I didn’t want to upset him, but he needed to know. “Oh, and the Queen of the Mists has sort of exiled me from her Kingdom.”

His sharp intake of breath was audible even through the phone. Then he said, “Please come to Shadowed Hills at your earliest convenience. And to answer your earlier question . . . I would absolutely like to know.” The phone went dead.

I lowered it, closing the lid as I turned to Tybalt. “Sylvester’s on board and wants us to drop by later. Now we just need Quentin.”

Tybalt raised an eyebrow. “How’s that?”

“He’s my squire, he should be here to watch me rail against the monarchy.”

Tybalt sighed. “Give me your phone.”

“What?” I blinked. Of all the things he could have requested, that one was near the bottom of the list.

“I will call Raj, who has recently taken to carrying one of those damnable machines. Raj will go get Quentin. They’re similar in size, and it’s time my nephew started transporting others through the Shadow Roads. He needs the practice.”

“. . . right.” I handed my phone to Tybalt, trying not to think about the fact that I was signing up my squire as a test case for a Prince-in-training. “I’m going to go see if I can find Dean and get help carrying Nolan to a better napping spot.” Hopefully, Dean would be okay with the fact that his knowe was becoming party central for the anti-Queen action. The fact that his parents were together in part because of Arden’s parents might help. If I was lucky.

“I’ll be right there,” Tybalt assured me, and began to dial.

I turned and walked toward the courtyard. That was my best hope of finding Dean fast. If I was going to run this fire drill, I wanted to run it right. Maybe it was cliché to hide the Crown Princess of the Mists in the only County in San Francisco whose regent had ties to the Undersea, but this was my first planned rebellion against the throne, and I was flying by the seat of my pants. Those pants said “go where she’s likely to find allies.”

Even if this didn’t work out, I had little doubt the Undersea would be happy to take Arden and Nolan in, hiding them where the Queen could never reach them. I snorted with suppressed amusement. Me, October “I was a fish for fourteen years” Daye, advocating that someone go hide with the mermaids. I guess some traumas get better with time. That, or they wind up buried under newer, bigger problems.

Dean was running across the courtyard when I stepped inside. His eyes widened when he saw me, and he stumbled to a stop. “What’s going on?” he demanded.

“Do you want the long version or the short version?”

“The pixies and bogeys are going out of their minds! I don’t really understand them—”