Ashes of Honor
Page 95

“I always want to argue with you,” said May, and grabbed Quentin’s arm. “Come on, kiddo. Let’s get out of the blast radius.” Quentin laughed, letting himself be dragged away. With an amused snort, Li Qin turned and walked to the spot I’d assigned her.
As soon as the last bite of burger was crammed into my mouth and swallowed, I dug Riordan’s ruby out of my pocket. I dropped it on the floor and stomped on it. It shattered with a satisfying “crunch.” The smell of blood—Chelsea’s blood—filled the air. I couldn’t use someone else’s blood charm, but I could use the blood itself. “Come back,” I murmured, fixing the image of Chelsea in my mind. “Come back, and be free.”
After that, there was nothing we could do but wait. I was out of burgers, so I started finger-combing my hair, wincing every time I hit a snarl. Tybalt raised an eyebrow. “I thought I was the one who was meant to indulge in self-grooming in public.”
“I’m nervous.” I sighed, letting my hands drop. “When Chelsea gets here…”
“You’ll do what must be done.”
“No matter what she chooses, she’s losing one of her parents. She’s only just met Etienne.”
“The decision is hers, October.” Tybalt placed a hand on my shoulder. “Changelings Choose because they must belong to one world or the other. You can grant her the gift of truly belonging in the world that she chooses. View it as a blessing, not a burden. I’ve seen too many changelings die for lack of someone like you.”
I sighed again, leaning into his hand. “Who gave you permission to know me this well?”
“Believe it or not, little fish…you did.”
I was mulling that over when the smell of calla lilies and sycamore smoke started to suffuse the room. I stiffened. “Everybody get ready!”
The words were barely out of my mouth when a hole opened in the middle of the ceiling and Chelsea tumbled out, like a lost Alice plummeting into Wonderland. She made a small, wounded sound when she hit the marble, scrambling almost immediately to her feet. Her eyes widened when she saw us.
“Stay back!” she shouted. “You have to stay back! I don’t know when I’m going to jump again!”
A second hole opened next to the first, and Etienne dropped through. Unlike his daughter, he landed on his feet. Both were dirty, with scorch marks on their clothing. Etienne was missing a shoe and looked like he was on the verge of collapse. Chelsea looked even worse.
There was no way I could get to them in time. But I didn’t need to. Pulling the jar of power dampener out of my pocket, I yanked off the baggie and shouted, “Etienne! Think fast!” He looked up just as I threw it at him as hard as I could. His eyes widened, and he snatched the jar out of the air.
Tybalt grabbed my arm. “The plan—”
“I don’t want you touching that stuff. No shapeshifters, remember?”
Across the room, Etienne was struggling with the lid of the jar. Passage through searing cold and magical portals seemed to have done an excellent job of tightening it; he was a trained knight, and the lid wasn’t even budging.
“Daddy!” wailed Chelsea. The air around her was starting to glitter again.
Etienne swore loudly enough for me to hear him, and he stepped closer to Chelsea before flinging the jar at the floor. It exploded, showering glass and power-dampening potion in all directions—including on Chelsea and her father. The glitter in the air died as the solution hit Chelsea’s skin. She stared at Etienne.
“What did you do? How did you stop me?”
He didn’t say anything. He just reached out, gathered her into his arms, and hugged his daughter for the first time.
I waited long enough for them to finish their embrace before starting toward them, stopping well outside the splash radius from the broken jar. “All better?”
Etienne looked up, raw gratitude painting his face. “Yes. Thank you, October. I don’t know how I can ever repay you.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” I said, holding up my hand. The gratitude in his expression died, replaced by broken-hearted understanding. “There’s still something I have to do.”
“I understand.” He let go of Chelsea. “Do what must be done.”
Chelsea looked up at him, confusion and betrayal in her eyes. “Daddy?”
It was amazing, and a little bit heartbreaking, how fast Etienne had become “Daddy” to her. She must have wondered all her life about the man who’d provided the genes that made her not quite human. I just hoped I wasn’t about to take her away from him forever.
“It’s all right, Chelsea. You need to go to October. She’ll make everything better.”
“I’ll try, anyway,” I said, and forced what I hoped would look like a sincere smile. “Hi, Chelsea. Can you come over here?” I paused before adding, “Wipe your hands really, really dry first, okay? I need to hold them, and it’s sort of important we not get any of that goo on me.”
“Is the goo why I stopped jumping?” I nodded. She smiled shyly. “Okay.” Chelsea started toward me, rubbing her hands against the seat of her pants as she approached. When she reached me, she held them out, showing me that they were dry.
“Good.” I took one hand, drawing my knife with the other. Her eyes widened, but she didn’t pull away. “I need to ask you a question, and I need you to give me an honest answer. It’s important. You have to answer for you, and not for your parents—either one of them. Can you do that here, or do you want to go somewhere private?”
Chelsea glanced back at Etienne, who was watching us with a silent, burning intensity. She turned back to me. “I can answer.”
“Okay. Chelsea, when you think about yourself, your place in the world…do you think of yourself as human? Or do you think of yourself as fae?”
It seemed like the whole room held its breath, waiting for Chelsea to answer. I know I wasn’t breathing. No matter how she answered, what I was going to do to her would hurt. I’d done it to my own daughter, but Gillian was unconscious at the time; she didn’t understand the source of the pain. Chelsea would understand. She’d know I was the one doing this horrible thing to her. I didn’t know her well enough to know whether she’d be able to forgive me.
Chelsea frowned, looking down toward her feet. A drop of the power dampener was on the toe of her shoe, glistening slickly. “When I was little, all I wanted was to be normal, so Mom wouldn’t have to spend all her time worrying about me,” she said slowly. “All the other kids got to have sleepovers and do sports, and I had to pretend I wanted to grow up to be Mr. Spock or one of Tolkien’s elves.”