Chimes at Midnight
Page 10

“You just did, but you can ask another one.” Anger and dread were warring for control of my emotions, and it felt like they were negotiating a team up. I had to find a way to fight this. If the Luidaeg couldn’t help me, I still had to come up with something. But what? She was the Queen. I was a changeling with some weird skills and a bunch of allies that I cared way too much about. What if she decided to go after them? Tybalt couldn’t abandon his Court. Sylvester wouldn’t abandon his Duchy. They were going to be sitting ducks if I was forced to leave.
I didn’t want to be in this situation. She hadn’t given me a choice.
“Why do you hate goblin fruit so much? I mean . . .” Quentin paused, choosing his words more carefully before he said, “I mean you hated it even before you knew for sure that people were dying. Lots of things can kill people. You don’t hate them all.”
“Most deadly things come with a choice. A changeling who tastes goblin fruit once—just once—doesn’t get any choice after that.” I frowned at him in the rearview mirror. “You’ve been watching me chase the stuff all over the Bay Area for months. I thought you’d know this by now.”
“Yeah, but you started when you were still . . .” His voice faltered as he realized he’d almost mentioned Connor. He glanced guiltily at Tybalt. Tybalt, bless him, didn’t say anything.
Purebloods don’t like to think about death much. It upsets them to remember that people aren’t eternal. Connor’s death nearly broke me. But he died to save my little girl, and I couldn’t shame him by refusing to go on with my own life. “The goblin fruit started showing up on the streets after Connor died,” I said. “I was looking . . . I don’t even know what I was looking for. I was looking for trouble. I found it.”
“I thought you were going to die, too,” Quentin admitted in a small voice. I stared at his reflection, shocked. That was something he’d never said out loud, no matter how much his behavior told me he was feeling it. He looked down at his hands, twisting them together in his lap, and said, “It’s why I kept telling Tybalt where you were going, and how much danger you were putting yourself in. I hoped maybe you’d listen to him, even if you wouldn’t listen to me.”
Tybalt nodded, confirming Quentin’s story. I winced.
“Oak and ash, Quentin, I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, well.” He raised one shoulder and let it drop again in a classic teenage half-shrug. “When I had to break up with Katie, I sort of felt like dying for a little while. I guess having someone you love die has to be a whole lot worse.”
“It is,” I said honestly. “It’s the worst thing you can imagine.” I glanced at Tybalt, who was still looking straight ahead, letting us talk without him. I took my right hand off the wheel and placed it on his knee, earning myself a quick, almost grateful look. “But it gets better.”
“That’s good. It’s just . . . you never told me why you started hunting goblin fruit the way you have been. I’m your squire, Toby. I’m supposed to support you while you train me, and I can’t do that if you never tell me what’s going on. It’s my job to be here for you.” He sounded profoundly frustrated. “People are dying. I get that. I could have helped, if you’d let me.”
I took a deep breath, pulling my hand from Tybalt’s knee and raking the hair out of my face. Finally, I said, “Let me ask you something. Have you ever tried goblin fruit?”
There was a long pause before Quentin answered, “No. I mean. Some of the older courtiers back home had tried it, but I wasn’t old enough when I came here, and Duke Torquill doesn’t allow the stuff in his Court.”
Quentin was originally from Canada—somewhere near Toronto, if I placed his faint and fading accent correctly. Where near Toronto was something I didn’t know. He was a blind foster to the Duchy of Shadowed Hills, which made his parentage and title, if any, a secret until such time as his fosterage ended or his parents chose to reveal themselves. “So you’ve never had any, but you’ve talked to people who have. What do they say about it?”
“That it’s like going to the deeper lands of Faerie, even if it’s only for a little while.” Quentin’s tone turned disdainful. “I’ve been to the deeper lands. I didn’t like it much.”
I had to fight the urge to laugh. It would just have offended his dignity, and it wouldn’t have been fair: I didn’t like the deeper lands much either. Tybalt wasn’t so restrained. He snorted. All three of us had wound up in Annwn, a realm that’s supposed to be long-sealed. Our stay had involved a lot of bleeding, mostly on my part, and a lot of pain, for everyone. I was just as glad to be home. “Yeah, but I bet it sounded pretty appealing before you knew what the deeper lands were like.”
“I guess so,” admitted Quentin.
“Now imagine how amazing that sounds to changeling kids. They’re on the outside looking in. They’re never going to have as much magic as everybody else. They’re not going to live as long as everybody else. Hell, half the courtiers I knew when I was a kid said even setting foot in the deeper lands would strike a changeling dead.” It was pure pixie-crap, of course. The first changelings came about because the fae insisted on abducting mortals and carrying them away to their enchanted castles under the hills. If changelings couldn’t survive the deeper lands, we’d have known that millennia ago. “Can you see how goblin fruit would sound appealing?”
“Well, sure, but goblin fruit is deadly to changelings. Everybody knows that.”
I sighed. Sometimes my squire was such a pureblood that it hurt. “Quentin, believe me, changeling kids get used to being lied to by people who want to keep the best things for themselves. There’s always someone who thinks the whole ‘it’s deadly’ thing is one more lie to keep them from being happy. There’s always someone willing to try one little taste. And one is all it takes.” No one evangelized for goblin fruit like a changeling on their first high, before the first pains of withdrawal hit them. They were true believers, each and every one, and they’d convince all their friends that the warnings were false.
Quentin frowned, disdain fading into puzzlement. “You hate goblin fruit because it messes with changelings? Not because it kills them?”