Chimes at Midnight

“I wish you wouldn’t,” he said.

“I don’t care. But I’m leaving the car here. I’d bet you a dollar the Queen figures you’re going to keep me locked up while you try to figure out how to wean me off goblin fruit without losing me, and this is the one place in the Kingdom that I’m officially allowed to be after my deadline. So let her assume she’s taken me out of commission.” I bit back a bitter smirk. “I barely even need a human disguise to go out in public right now. Her men won’t recognize me.”

“You don’t need one at all,” said Quentin softly.

“What?” I turned my attention to him, and paused, seeing the grief and, yes, terror written on his face. This, right here, was what he’d been afraid of since I started my one-woman crusade against goblin fruit on the streets of my city: I was addicted, I was mostly mortal, and he was going to lose me.

“If you keep your hair over your ears . . . they’re not even that pointy. You don’t need a human disguise at all.”

The words were like blows. I’d known that I looked human, but not that I was that far gone. I looked to Tybalt, searching his face for confirmation.

He nodded.

“Oh, ash and pine.” I closed my eyes, taking a shaky breath. “Fine. So the Queen’s guards won’t be able to track me by my magic. Let’s see this as a good thing, and go.”

“Where to?” asked Sylvester.

“The Library, to start with. Maybe there’s something there about helping a changeling kick a goblin fruit addiction.” If not . . . I had already asked Mags to pull any books on hope chests. I’d been trying to understand how my magic worked. Maybe I could use any information she had for me as a way to find another hope chest and put myself back to normal when I couldn’t do it on my own.

“I will take you anywhere you need to go,” said Tybalt.

“I’m coming with you,” said Quentin.

I wanted to argue with him. I couldn’t do it. With my magic essentially out of commission for the moment, I was going to need all the backup I could get, and he was my squire. He had as much right to be by my side as anybody else, and more than most. “It’s going to be dangerous,” I said.

“That’s nothing new,” he said. “Besides, my knight is pretty stupid when it comes to danger, and she’s the best role model I have for dealing with the stuff.”

I smiled a little. “Just so long as you’re aware.”

“I am.”

“Okay.” I turned to Sylvester. He looked so miserable, standing there next to the wall, watching us make plans to go away and leave him. He’d lost me more times than anyone else in this room. He’d watched me walk away, and he’d never stopped me, not once. He let me grow up. He knew that he had to give me that much.

Pulling away from Tybalt, I walked over to Sylvester and hugged him. This might be the last time we saw each other. I wasn’t going to let my anger and his well-intentioned betrayal be the last things he remembered. No matter how deserved that might be, or how wrong he’d been, I loved him too much for that. I always had.

“Please be careful,” he whispered, before kissing the crown of my head. “I wish you wouldn’t go.”

“I’ll be as careful as I can,” I said, and stepped back. “Tell Jin where I went, and that I’ll have my phone if she comes up with any brilliant ideas about how to get me through this.”

“I will.”

“Quentin, come on.”

My squire walked over to me. Tybalt took my right hand and Quentin’s left, and we stepped into the shadows, and were gone.





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