Chimes at Midnight
Page 64

Somewhere outside the car, Danny and Quentin were shouting my name. I managed to peel one hand free and wave to them, trying to signal that I was okay. It was hard to focus through the burning chill. Slowly, it was replaced by the taste of loam, the smell of bonfires in the night. I tried to pull myself out of the memory I could feel building around me, but it was too late; I was already lost. And then . . .
And then . . .
“Dammit, Amy, you’re not listening to me!” I’m angry with her, and with myself. This is my fault as much as it is hers. She’s the youngest. She should never have been given so much freedom, never allowed to make so many poor decisions. But we were scattered, broken by what had happened to our parents, and we left her free for so long. Too long. This is my fault.
She whirls, blonde hair flying, hands balled into fists, and shouts, “You had no right!”
The Luidaeg’s memory was showing me my mother, back when she was vital and engaged and not hiding from the world for some reason she’d never shared with me. I gasped and stopped fighting the blood. If the Luidaeg’s memory had been focused on my mother when she was bleeding for me, there must have been a reason. Maybe this would tell me what it was.
And maybe it would kill me. Too late now.
“I had every right, Amy; I had every right. That little girl deserves better than what you were trying to do to her, and you know it.”
“She deserves a life!”
“She’s not human! No matter what you do to her, no matter how deep you go, Faerie will always know her as its own. Do you understand? You can’t free her. All you can do is make her defenseless. She’ll belong to Faerie until she dies. You’re making sure that happens sooner.”
She looks at me, my pretty Amy, and her broken heart is shining in her eyes. Finally, she shakes her head, and speaks. “So be it,” she says, and I know.
I know she’s given up again.
The blood haze was starting to loosen, and with it, the bands constricting my lungs and gut. I took a great, gasping breath, and the bands loosened further. Scrabbling along the door with one hand, I found the handle and wrenched it open. Only my still-fastened seatbelt stopped me from fully spilling out into the street.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Massive hands were suddenly there to support me as Danny interrupted my fall and hoisted me back into the seat. “What’n the hell was that all about? You need a cup of coffee or somethin’?”
“Coffee doesn’t cure all ills, Danny.” My hands were steady enough now that I could undo the seatbelt. Score one for the Luidaeg and her weirdly invasive style of magic. Using Danny’s arm to steady myself, I stood. “I haven’t had a cup of coffee since the pie.”
“Huh,” he said, looking impressed. “Maybe you can kick caffeine and goblin fruit at the same time.”
“I doubt it.” I looked across the car to Quentin. He was pale, and his lips were pressed into a thin line—something he only did when he was really concerned. “I’m okay. I just wasn’t prepared for the remedy the Luidaeg made me to kick as hard as it did.”
He blinked as he looked at me, and said, “Maybe you should fix your hair.”
“What?” I reached up to feel it with one hand. “It’s my hair. It’s fine. It always looks like this.”
“Yeah, but your ears don’t.”
Now it was my turn to blink. I dropped my hand lower, to where the edge of my right ear was just visible through the tangled strands of my hair. It was still mostly rounded . . . but the edge was more pointed than it had been at the start of the evening. “Oh,” I said.
“Yeah,” Quentin said.
My magic—which was currently way too willing to act outside my conscious control—must have decided I needed help focusing on the Luidaeg’s borrowed memory, and so inched a little closer to fae. Not enough closer; I still couldn’t taste Danny or Quentin’s heritage, and I knew from the depth of the shadows across the street that if I lost the firefly, I’d be fae-blind once again. But enough to stop the shaking.
Enough to buy me a little more time.
“Luidaeg, you are a fabulous monster, and an even better bitch,” I muttered.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing.” I smoothed my hair down over my ears, looking back to Quentin. “Better?”
“Better,” he said. “You still don’t need, um . . .” He waved his hands, encompassing the length of my body.
I decided to show mercy for once. Taking my hand off Danny’s arm, I said, “I’m still human-looking enough that I don’t need to worry about a full-body disguise, huh?”
Cheeks flaming red, Quentin nodded.
“Okay. At least we know what we’re working with. Come on. Quentin, you need to stay close to either me or Danny, since otherwise I don’t think you’re going to be able to see the place.” I could have given him a firefly of his own, but I was starting to do the mental math, and I didn’t like the numbers. I’d started with ten. We lost one finding Arden; I had one on me, and so did Danny. They could fly away at any time. As long as they were my only reliable way of seeing into Faerie, I was going to hold onto the seven I still had with an iron fist.
“Okay,” said Quentin, and took my elbow as we jaywalked across Valencia Street.
Jaywalking is common in San Francisco. It’s not that there aren’t crosswalks—there are—it’s just that as a populace, we’re all too damn lazy to walk to the end of the block when we can see our destination right across the street. So it wasn’t until we were halfway across the street that I realized what was wrong.
There were no other jaywalkers. There were no other pedestrians of any kind, not on the sidewalks, not even clustered outside the Phoenix or the corner store. Even if everywhere else was deserted, there should have been someone outside the two nearest sources of alcohol. I stopped, not particularly caring that we were in the middle of the street. “I’m an idiot,” I murmured. “Quentin?”
“Um, yeah?” he asked, automatically dropping his voice to match mine.
“I need you to throw up a hide-and-seek spell, and it needs to be big enough to cover all three of us.” I started looking around, trying to focus on the places where the shadows were deepest. The firefly was supposed to let me see through illusions. That was fine and dandy, except for the part where I had to find those illusions before I could see through them. I hate loopholes.