Chimes at Midnight

“I’m not even going to ask why you know what methadone is, but no.” I pulled the baggie of blood gems out of my inside jacket pocket. “He made these from my blood. They dull the wanting for a little while.” But not for long. I could feel it starting to twist in my gut again, telling me that nothing in this world mattered half as much as seeing the beautiful things the goblin fruit had to show me.

“Your little alchemist does delight in surprises, doesn’t he? May I?” She didn’t actually wait for permission before snatching the bag out of my hand, opening it, and removing one of the larger blood gems. She held it up so that it glittered in the candlelight. “Hmm. Good work. I couldn’t have done better.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.” She dropped the blood gem back into the bag. “I’m not an alchemist. What he’s done is tricking your body into believing that it’s being fed. That’s flower magic, like illusions, and he gets that from his connection to Titania. I’m all blood and water. I could turn you into a turtle so you’d die a little slower, but I couldn’t make your mind into a turtle’s mind.”

“That’s a charmingly specific distinction.” I reclaimed the baggie, tucking it back into my pocket. “I need help.”

The Luidaeg snorted. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

“I can’t stay this human. The goblin fruit will kill me. I’m not sure how to call my mother—and given what she wanted to do to me before, I don’t know whether calling her would do any good.”

“Ah,” said the Luidaeg softly. “I guess I can see where that would be a concern.”

“Yeah.” When my mother first changed my blood, she wasn’t trying to make me more fae; she was trying to turn me human, to protect me from whatever lunatic destiny she was afraid lurked for our bloodline. And maybe we have some sort of destiny. I’ve had more than a few soothsayers and prophets predict that I’m going to be involved in something big, whether or not I want to be. She thought that turning me human would save me, and maybe she was right; I don’t really know one way or another. But I do know that when I was elf-shot and would have died immediately, she’d changed the balance of my blood to make me more fae.

I just wasn’t sure she’d be willing to do it again.

“What were you hoping I could do for you? I don’t have Amy’s gifts. I can’t make you any more or less mortal than you are right now.” The Luidaeg grimaced. “I could wrap you in a Selkie’s skin, but that’s a step that can’t be taken back. You’d never be Dóchas Sidhe again.”

My eyes widened. For the Luidaeg to even offer . . . “No. I don’t want that. I was hoping you’d be able to tell us whether there were any hope chests in the Kingdom other than the one the Queen is holding.”

“Ah.” The Luidaeg looked relieved. I couldn’t blame her. The Selkies were skin-shifters, and the skins they wore had been flayed from the living bodies of the Roane. Every Firstborn had his or her own descendant races. The Roane had been hers.

The Luidaeg’s relief faded quickly, and she shook her head. “I’m sorry, Toby, but no. The only hope chest in this Kingdom is the one you surrendered to the Queen. If you want it, you need to get access to the treasury.”

“And we’re back to insurrection.” I sighed. “That’s still the plan, mind you, but I was hoping to be a little more indestructible when I pulled the trigger. Also, alive. Alive figures heavily in my long-term plans.” As human as I was at the moment, I wasn’t even sure the night-haunts would come if I died. The thought filled me with a new form of sick terror. Faerie lives on in the night-haunts. They’re the closest we can come to actual eternity. I’ve never been in a hurry to join them, but the idea that I might not join them at all was . . . unsettling.

“So what’s next?”

“There’s a book at the Library. No title, bound in blue samite, written by Antigone of Albany. It has records of where the hope chests went after they were handed out—including the one the Queen has now. Got any ideas on where we could find her? Maybe this Antigone lady can give us some suggestions on where to get our hands on an alternative.”