“Alone?” asked Quentin. His tone told me that he already knew the answer, even as he was hoping to be wrong.
Sorry, kid. “You’re going with them,” I said. “You need to tell the Luidaeg what we saw in Annwn. She should be able to put him back together.” And wipe parts of his memory, so that he thought he’d been kidnapped by ninjas or pirates or, hell, time-traveling cowboys. Anything, as long as the culprits were completely human, and completely not related to me in any way.
“I don’t like the idea of leaving you alone with him,” said Quentin, glancing at Simon, in case I had somehow missed his point.
“I’m safer alone with him than you are,” I said. “He can’t hurt me, remember?”
“I am, in point of fact, standing right here, and am not currently intending to harm anyone,” said Simon. He sounded weary and exasperated, like he was getting tired of explaining himself to us.
Tough. After the things he’d done, he could put up with a little explaining. “Your ideas of ‘harm’ don’t always line up with ours,” I said. “Still. I believe you, which is why I’m staying with you, instead of calling for backup. We’re going to follow August’s trail while Quentin gets Officer Thornton to the Luidaeg. Quentin, you can join us when you’re done. I’m sure Danny will be happy to give you a ride.” And if that had the extra added bonus of equipping us with both a Bridge Troll and a car, I would take it.
Danny is not the most effective fighter I’ve ever known. He doesn’t have to be. When he hits something, it stays down, and most weapons blunt or break against his stony skin. He would be an asset, if this ever devolved into actual fighting.
Quentin still looked unsure. I decided to sweeten the deal.
“Officer Thornton is going to need things to be quiet and calm while you’re in the car. You should have time to text Dean and fill him in on what’s been going on. Let him know that you didn’t run off to Disney World for a dream vacation while he was stuck here, dealing with the usual gang of weirdoes.”
“I don’t dream about going to Disney World,” said Quentin. “Too humid, not enough hockey.”
“See, and here I thought the Canada pavilion in Epcot would be your go-to vacation destination,” I said.
Quentin frowned at me, too worried and weary to even rise to the bait.
I couldn’t blame him. I was exhausted. The only sleep I’d had since the bachelorette party had been in the pixie village; I was running on fumes, or maybe on whatever came after fumes. My stomach rumbled, reminding me that sleep wasn’t the only thing I’d been skipping out on. Maybe I hadn’t been bleeding as much as usual, but I was still pushing my body well past the point where it was going to keep forgiving me.
“When Danny gets here, you’re going with him,” I said. “You can call me if the Luidaeg has any instructions. Simon and I are going to find August and finish this. Maybe with a stop for breakfast burritos.”
“What in the world is a breakfast burrito?” asked Simon.
I looked at Quentin again. “I am now genuinely sorry that you’re going to miss this,” I said.
Officer Thornton raised his head.
The rest of us froze. We weren’t wearing human disguises. They hadn’t been necessary in Annwn, and in my rush to hide the malnourished cop from any of his peers who might happen to be walking to work, I hadn’t suggested getting them in place. All he had to do was look at us, and he’d know we weren’t human.
He turned to me. He blinked. His eyes were dark brown, the color of river clay, and still slightly unfocused . . . at least until he looked at my ears. His eyes focused real fast when he looked at my ears.
“Lady, let alone,” he said. “Where am I?”
“Um, hi,” I said. “We’re back in San Francisco. I have a friend coming to take you to see a doctor.” The Luidaeg was basically a doctor, if by “doctor” you meant “person who will totally fix whatever’s wrong with your body and mind, possibly by turning you into a boulder, since boulders don’t get sick.” It was close enough for Faerie.
Officer Thornton frowned, eyes going unfocused again. “Who are you?”
This was my chance. I could lie to him, obscure my part in the whole situation: I could let him go to the Luidaeg’s with no idea who had brought him home. She was going to wipe his memory no matter what I said. This way might be kinder.
Or it might be crueler, because it would leave him thinking, however briefly, that it had taken a total stranger to care enough to rescue him. “My name’s October,” I said gently. “We’ve met before, remember? I’m going to make sure you’re taken care of. You’re safe now.”
“October,” he said, slowly, wonderingly, sounding out each syllable of my name like it was a revelation. “Yes. Of course. I know you. I was waiting for you.”
“I’m here now,” I assured him.
A car roared along the mostly silent street, screeching to a stop in front of the alley. It was a fairly standard city cab. Only someone with an excellent eye for both magic and automotive modifications would have been able to see how much that cab had been enchanted and reinforced, until its mostly synthetic frame could contain the massive body of the cabby who drove it. The driver’s side door slammed, and there was Danny, unfolding from the vehicle like he was planning to go on forever.
He wasn’t nearly as tall when enchanted to look human as he was in his normal guise, but he was still impressive. “Yo,” he boomed, in the low shout that served him as a whisper. “Your ride’s here.”
“That’s your cue, Quentin,” I said.
My squire nodded and snatched his own handful of shadows, weaving it effortlessly into a makeshift human disguise. The details of it were too vague to be entirely convincing—his skin was smooth to the point of being poreless, and his eyes looked like they belonged to a doll, not a living person—but it would get him to the car.
Officer Thornton watched this with wide, disbelieving eyes. “Oh,” he said.
“Yes, oh,” I agreed, and pushed Officer Thornton gently toward Quentin, who stepped forward and took his arm. “You’re going to be okay.”
“Come on,” said Quentin encouragingly, and pressed the candle into my hand before he led Officer Thornton forward, through the fragile wall of my illusion, to the street.
He stopped to say something to Danny, voice too soft for me to hear. Danny looked up, eyes searching the apparently empty alley until he settled on the spot where he assumed I would be standing and offered me a nod. He was good: his gaze was only a few feet off. Then all three of them got into the cab, and Danny restarted the engine, and they drove away.
A hand touched my shoulder. There was only one person left that it could belong to. I managed not to shudder as I turned to look at Simon.
“What next?” he asked.
“Food, and following,” I said. “Can you disguise yourself?”