“Almost…there…” The last lock let go. The cuffs fell away. I scooted back in the bracken, clutching my burned fingers to my chest and trying to figure out what I was supposed to do now.
And Tybalt opened his eyes.
Cait Sidhe can see through don’t-look-here spells. I don’t know why; maybe it’s something to do with that whole “a cat can look at a King” thing. “Tybalt?” The question was half-whisper, half-plea, as if I didn’t know whether I wanted to hear the answer. I bit my lip, scooting a little closer, careful to avoid the fallen cuffs. “Are you okay?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he sat up slowly, touching the burned places on his wrists with shaking hands before raising his head and looking at me. His pupils were so wide they all but devoured his irises, making his eyes inhuman and strange.
I could hear Etienne moving in the room behind me, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was Tybalt, looking at me like he didn’t know me at all. “Tybalt, it’s me, October…”
Tybalt moved almost too fast for my eyes to follow, closing the distance between us in less than a second. His hands caught my shoulders as he crushed his lips against mine, tasting of sweat and crushed broom as well as the more customary pennyroyal and musk. I returned the kiss without thought or hesitation, molding myself into him, trying to express my relief without words. We didn’t need any words. Not anymore.
His teeth cut my lip. I welcomed the taste of my own blood, letting myself draw strength from it. The wound had healed by the time he pulled away from me, and the burning sensation in my fingers was fading, replaced by a numbness I knew couldn’t last. My body could recover from almost anything. Iron poisoning isn’t “almost anything.” The pain would come soon.
And that didn’t matter, because Tybalt was looking at me, eyes returning to normal as his breathing evened out. “October,” he whispered, and the sound of his voice was the sweetest thing I’d ever heard. “I was afraid…”
“So was I.” I put my hand against his cheek. “Don’t scare me like that.”
“I assure you, it wasn’t my intent.” He looked past me, pupils narrowing, and offered a small nod. “Sir Etienne.”
“Tybalt.” There was a scuff of boots against the floor as Etienne stepped up behind me. “Loath as I am to disrupt this reunion—almost as loath as I am to ask any questions about it—we must move. Chelsea is somewhere in this place, and we need to find her.”
“Yeah, we do,” I said, and pulled my hand away from Tybalt’s cheek. “Can you stand?”
“For you, little fish, I would do anything.” Tybalt paused before adding, regretfully, “But desire does not mean ability. I’m not sure I can walk right now.”
“Can you change shapes?”
Tybalt blinked. Then he nodded. “I believe so.”
“Try,” I said, and leaned forward to press another kiss against his forehead.
A smile tugged at the corners of Tybalt’s lips. Then the smell of pennyroyal and musk rose in the air between us, and he was gone, replaced by a striped tabby. The beating he had received was more evident in this form, without clothing to hide his wounds; the fur above his paws was worn away, and there were several gouges in his side. His breathing was labored—something I hadn’t noticed when he’d been in human form, but I hadn’t been looking for it, either. I’d been too relieved to see him awake.
Looking up at me, Tybalt meowed.
“We need to get out of here.” I stood, scooping him into my arms. He settled against my chest, offering a single rusty purr before going perfectly silent, perfectly still. I zipped my jacket to hold him there and turned to Etienne. “Now we just need to find Chelsea and Quentin.”
“Assuming they’re being held in this same location,” he said grimly.
“Let’s at least try to look on the bright side, okay?” I walked toward him. “So far, we’re not too hurt to keep moving, and that’s more than I was hoping for. Now let’s go find our kids.”
“I was waiting for you,” said Etienne, and opened the door.
His don’t-look-here spell was still holding, hanging around the three of us like a shroud as we stepped back out into the hall. I paused to breathe in, testing the air. Then I froze, the smell of Folletti hitting me like an icepick to the temple. There was nowhere for us to run, and no time to explain. I yanked the door shut and clapped a hand over Etienne’s mouth, hoping he’d get the message.
Years of training served us both well. Etienne’s eyes briefly widened before he offered me a short, sharp nod, acknowledging my unspoken request. Together, we waited in silence for what was coming next.
We didn’t wait long. Three Folletti came drifting down the hall, their semi-transparent bodies gliding about two feet above the floor. All of them had their swords drawn, and were looking around suspiciously. I didn’t need to see their faces to know they were on edge.
My experience with the Cloud Kingdoms—and hence the Folletti—is limited enough to verge on nonexistent. Since they were made of air, and illusions are technically bent air and light, they might see right through Etienne’s don’t-look-here. On the other hand, being made of air might make the illusion work even better on them. It was a gamble. As their searching eyes found our side of the hall, I tensed, ready to throw myself at them in order to buy Etienne time to open us a portal.
The Folletti looked right through us and drifted on their way. I kept my hand over Etienne’s mouth and began slowly, silently counting, refusing to let either of us move until I was certain we were alone. When I had reached a hundred without the Folletti returning I pulled my hand away, jerking my chin toward the end of the hall. Etienne nodded. Still holding Tybalt to my chest, I pushed away from the wall and started walking toward the doorway to the stairs.
If Riordan thought we were safely confined in our individual rooms, she wasn’t likely to have multiple squads of Folletti checking up on us. That would be a waste of resources, and whatever she was planning was big enough that I didn’t expect her to have resources to waste. Holding that thought in mind, I put my free hand on the bannister and began descending the stairs. Etienne was close behind me.
That’s what saved us. When the second group of Folletti floated up through the open central column of the spiral stairway, Etienne yanked me backward against him, covering my mouth the way I’d covered his only a few minutes before. The Folletti drifted by without noticing us. Once they were past, Etienne let me go, and we resumed our downward trek.
With the Folletti above us now, we were able to continue down past the floor where Etienne and I had been held. There was another floor below it, identical to the two above. I stopped at the landing, pulling the Luidaeg’s Chelsea-chaser out of my pocket. It was still glowing the color of pale starlight. Chelsea wasn’t here. But that didn’t mean Quentin wasn’t.
Bringing my mouth close to Tybalt’s ear, I whispered, “Are you feeling strong enough to check the hall for prisoners? I don’t need you to get into their rooms. Just find out if there’s anyone here for us to save.”
Tybalt opened his mouth in a silent meow—the secret weapon of cats everywhere—and squirmed to tell me that I should put him down. I bent to set him gingerly on the cold stone floor, and watched uneasily as he slunk out of sight down the hall.
Etienne put his hand on my shoulder. I looked back to him, forcing myself to smile. He glanced down the hall after Tybalt before raising an eyebrow in silent question. I hesitated, considering my answer…and then, finally, I nodded. Yes. I was worried about Tybalt, and yes, I was worried for reasons beyond simple friendship. Oak and ash. If I was going to fall in love with the man, couldn’t I have picked a more reasonable time to do it?
Then again, when do I get a reasonable time to do anything anymore? There’s always something going wrong. If I put my life on hold until everything was calm, I’d be waiting forever for the chance to start living.
Tybalt came slinking back along the hall and wound himself around my ankles in a complicated figure-eight p
attern before starting back the way he’d come. I followed, catching his intent, and Etienne followed me. The three of us made an odd procession as we continued along the hallway to another of those damn locked doors. I dropped to my knees, pulling a sprig of bracken from my hair. By the time this night was over—if nights in Annwn ever really ended—I was going to be well practiced in the arts of breaking and entering.
Tybalt sat next to me and Etienne stood guard as I picked the lock. If it was Quentin on the other side, we’d be back together; we could hunt for Chelsea in earnest. I wouldn’t need to worry that my squire was in Riordan’s boudoir, waiting for her to come along and make him an offer he’d really want to refuse. If it was Quentin…the lock let go. I pushed the door open.
It wasn’t Quentin.
Officer Thornton of the San Francisco Police was lying bound in a heap of bracken like the ones we’d found in each of the other rooms. Like Etienne, he was blindfolded; like both Etienne and Tybalt, he’d clearly been beaten. Unlike either of them, he was human. I stood slowly, too startled to know what to say.
Much to my surprise, it was Etienne who found the words I couldn’t: “Oh, Oberon’s honor,” he said.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “That.”
Riordan was kidnapping humans. That wasn’t technically against any fae laws—Faerie has always had a generous definition of “acceptable” when it comes to messing with the human world. As long as you don’t get caught or leave witnesses, no one cares. But she had a mortal life, too, and that meant that Officer Thornton’s presence signaled one very big, very bad thing.
She wasn’t planning to go back to a world where she might be in trouble for kidnapping a police officer.
If we didn’t find Chelsea soon, we were going to be stuck in Annwn.
TWENTY-THREE
THERE WAS BLOOD ON OFFICER THORNTON’S forehead and caked under his nose, but he was alive, and he was awake. He turned toward the open door, snarling, “You are interfering with an officer of the law. Take off this blindfold, take off those stupid masks, and release me at once.”
I only had a moment to make a decision. Close this door and leave him behind, or try to get him to see reason and work with us. I wanted to close the door. Faerie was in danger, Chelsea was in danger, and a human police officer was one more distraction we didn’t need. That’s why I stepped into the room.
My humanity has always been a tenuous thing, and I’d been able to feel it slipping since Amandine shifted the balance of my blood. If I was sawing through my hands without hesitation and letting myself be ripped open because it was the most logical route, that meant I was losing my grip on what it meant to be human. A human—a good one, the kind I’d always tried to be—wouldn’t leave another human behind. Until I was certain I wanted to lose that part of myself, I couldn’t leave another human behind, either.
“Officer Thornton?” I kept my voice level as I walked toward him, the bracken muffling my footsteps. I motioned for Etienne to release the don’t-look-here. The smell of cedar smoke and limes washed through the room, almost obscuring the pennyroyal and musk smell of Tybalt resuming his human form. “Are you all right?”
The officer’s brow furrowed above his blindfold, matching the frown creasing his lips. Finally, he said, “Ms. Daye? Is that you?”
“Yeah.” Pointed ears and all. “Are you all right?”
“Are you aware that abducting an officer of the law is a felony, Ms. Daye?”
“I am, but I’m not particularly worried about it, since my friends and I didn’t abduct you.” I knelt next to him, reaching for his wrists. My fingers brushed his skin. He jerked away. “Hey. I’m trying to help.”
“I was trying to find you when this happened.”
“Maybe you should have given up on that a little sooner.” Luckily for me, Riordan’s people hadn’t viewed Officer Thornton as enough of a risk to break out the iron; he was bound with twine. I started picking at the knots on his wrists. “Why were you after me, anyway? It doesn’t make sense.”
“I don’t…I don’t know.” Officer Thornton looked briefly, utterly lost. Then his expression hardened, and he said, “There’s a teenage girl missing, and you have a history of being around missing teenage girls.”
Tybalt took his meaning before I did; I heard the quiet growl from behind me, like the sound a cat makes when confronted with a dog on its territory. I paused, my hands going still. “Are you implying what I think you’re implying?” I asked, in a soft voice.
Officer Thornton was smart enough to realize that maybe he didn’t want to continue down this road. He was also clearly strait-laced enough to feel that he had to. “You must admit, there has been a high incidence of crossover.”
“I’m a private detective. It’s what I do. And you followed me to Fremont.”
“I felt I had to,” said Officer Thornton. The confusion was back in his voice.
“Chelsea Ames is my daughter,” added Etienne, not to be left out of what was becoming an increasingly awkward conversation. “I retained Si—Ms. Daye to find her.”
Etienne’s hastily swallowed “sir” didn’t slip by Officer Thornton, whose frown deepened. “Who are you people?” he demanded. “Are you involved with some kind of a cult?”
“Something like that.” I went back to untying the twine around his wrists, being less careful about pulling it tight against his skin. “We’re the good guys here, believe it or not. As exhibit A, I want to present the fact that we’re not the ones who kidnapped and drugged you.”
“Drugged me?” said Officer Thornton, a note of suspicion creeping into his voice.
When all else fails, lie. That’s practically the first rule of life in Faerie. “Hallucinogens in the air supply. I was seeing flying pigs when I woke up. We’re in a warehouse somewhere—I suspect San Jose, but I’m not sure—and it’s hard to tell up from down. So the first thing I need to ask you to do is not to freak out when I take your blindfold away.”
I glanced over my shoulder to see whether Etienne and Tybalt could see where I was going with this. Etienne frowned. Tybalt smirked, curling one lip up to show the inhumanly sharp points of his incisors. Hallucinations could never be this vivid. It was still the best shot we had at convincing Officer Thornton that he hadn’t completely lost his mind.
“Ma’am—”
“My daughter’s life is in danger,” said Etienne. His voice was calm, reasonable, and without compassion. “If you cannot promise to remain in control of your faculties, you will be no use to us, and may endanger her further. I’m very sorry, and I’m sure you’re a very nice man in your own element, but I will not have Chelsea harmed for the sake of your pride. Do I make myself clear?”
Officer Thornton’s frown, which had been starting to fade, returned in force. “I don’t believe I caught your name.”
“That would be because I did not release it.” Etienne turned to look at me. “October. I understand why you feel the need to free this man. I ask you, as a friend and as a father, are you sure this is the right course of action?”
“I’m not leaving him here for Riordan’s goons to beat on when they realize we’re gone. Besides, it’s too late to change my mind. He’s loose.” I peeled the last of the twine away from Thornton’s wrists and scooted down to start working on his ankles. “You can remove the blindfold now, Officer. It’s pretty dark in here.”
True to form, Officer Thornton ripped his blindfold off, glaring into the darkness. “Pretty dark?” he said. “This is pitch black! How am I supposed to see my hand in front of my face without some lights?”
Etienne and I exchanged a startled glance, and I bit back a gust of relieved, semi-hysterical laughter. Human eyes were made for a daylight world. Fae eyes weren’t, and even changelings see in the dark better than any mortal. Etienne and Tybalt were purebloods, and I was fae enough that I hadn’t really realized how little light was coming in the room’s single window. It was even darker in the hall, with just the arrow slits in the walls letting m
oonlight in. We might actually be able to pull this off without needing to ask the Luidaeg to melt the mind of a San Francisco policeman.
“Your eyes will adjust,” said Tybalt, with almost believable sincerity.
“In the meanwhile, we need to get moving.” I pulled the twine off Thornton’s ankles. “Are you hurt?”
“I’ve felt better,” said Officer Thornton, and levered himself to his feet. He was moving slowly, but he wasn’t visibly favoring either leg. Maybe they’d been gentler with him, assuming that since he was only human, he wouldn’t be much of a threat. He touched his belt and scowled. “My weapon is missing.”
“Our captors weren’t dumb enough to leave us armed.” I offered my elbow. “Here, hold onto me. We’re going to need to be really, really quiet while we make our way down to ground level. Can you keep your mouth shut?” With a human in our party, asking Etienne for another don’t-look-here was out of the question. He could cast it, sure. We’d never be able to make Officer Thornton understand why he had to walk the way we told him to walk—not without a lot of explanations that we really didn’t have the time for.
The look Officer Thornton shot in my direction was withering. Pity it was directed at the wall to the left of my head. “If it gets me out of here, I can be as quiet as you need me to be. But I’m going to be very interested in your statements—all of you. Don’t think that you’re absolved of involvement just because you’re helping me escape.”
“You’re not the only one who’s here against his will, and my…nephew…is missing somewhere in this place,” I said. Looking chagrined, Officer Thornton took hold of my arm. “Good. Now come on.”
We crept out of the room and into the dark, Folletti-free hallway. I paused long enough to taste the air, finding no traces of Daoine Sidhe nearby, and waved the others toward the stairs. Officer Thornton clung to me the whole while, staring into the shadows with blind, intent eyes, as if he could somehow force the world to become bright enough to let him see.