Chimes at Midnight
Page 73

“Ah.” Tybalt packed an amazing amount of relief into that single syllable.
The last of the silk came away, revealing my iron knife in all its menacing simplicity. There was nothing splendid about it: it wasn’t ornate or decorative. It was just a piece of metal, designed for killing the fae. And it was very, very good at its job.
“What, you thought you’d get rid of me that easily?” I slid the iron blade into place in the holster around my waist, relaxing a little. Using iron against the fae isn’t something to be done lightly. Iron dulls magic and causes iron poisoning, which can be fatal. It’s the sort of thing you only do when you have to. But if the Queen’s guard came for me again, they wouldn’t find me quite so helpless. “Sweetheart, you’re stuck with me until you decide not to be.”
“At this point, if your foul attitude and utter lack of manners were going to drive me away, they would have done so already.”
“There, you see? Nothing to worry about.” I stripped off my ripped, bloody jeans and pulled a clean pair out of the dresser, stepping into them without bothering to bandage my knees. They weren’t bleeding anymore, and at this point, a little pain could only focus me. I was either going to get back to normal or die before infection could set in.
“October, if there is one thing I have learned over the course of my association with you, it is that there is always the potential for something else to worry about.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere.” My jeans were looser than they would have been even a day ago. My poor metabolism had to be working double-time as it tried to keep me going on a diet of adrenaline, blood, and misery. “Throw me my shoes. We’ve got a Queen to overthrow, and that means we need to get this show on the road.”
Tybalt smiled as he bent and grabbed a pair of sneakers from the floor beside the bed. He lobbed them to me one at a time, and smiled more as I caught them. Catching the shoes stung my scraped palms, but I didn’t allow myself to show it. The last thing I wanted was to worry him more after I had just sent him away.
Voices drifted through the open door. I looked back over my shoulder as I pulled my sneakers on and quickly laced them. “Sounds like Quentin and Danny are here.”
“Ah, yes,” he said dryly. “The cavalry.”
“Stand behind the man made of stone, don’t get shot, remember?” I stepped in and gave him one more kiss before grabbing the first aid kit off the dresser. “Come on. Let’s go.”
“As you like,” he said, and followed me out of the room and down the stairs, to where the dining room was increasingly coming to resemble a surrealist dinner party. Danny was standing in the doorway, where he was less likely to accidentally break anything. May was setting out a platter of sandwiches; Quentin already had one in either hand and was eating like he was afraid he’d never be fed again. Which was a reasonable concern, given the way things had been going for the past few days.
“Everybody grab what you’re going to want, and grab it to go,” I said, stepping into the room. “Tybalt, that means you, too. You need to eat something.”
“Hey, Tybalt,” said Quentin, waving a sandwich.
“Hello, all,” said Tybalt. He took a sandwich before offering Arden a shallow bow. “Milady.”
Arden frowned. “Hello, King of Cats. Have you come to join this fool’s parade, or are you just here to make snide comments before disappearing again?”
“Ah,” said Tybalt. “I have so missed people making assumptions about my intentions since my fair October learned I was an ally. We shall have to keep you. You’ll provide some much-needed unpleasantness.”
“At least that’s one thing I can be sure will never change,” said Arden. “No matter how much time I spend in or out of Faerie, Cait Sidhe will always be annoying.” She turned to me. “You said you had a plan. What is it? Or was it just ‘feed me sandwiches.’” Her frown faltered. “I admit, I don’t really see what sort of benefit you’d be getting from the sandwiches, but . . .”
“The sandwiches are a side benefit,” I said. “You should eat, if you haven’t already. But the plan . . . your father’s knowe was in Muir Woods, wasn’t it?”
Arden blinked. “How did you know that? The knowe was sealed after his death.”
“I’ve been there, or at least, I’ve been to the part that’s still accessible. It’s a shallowing now.”
“It’s sleeping,” she said. “Father said it would wait for us forever.”
“And there you go,” I said. “We take you to Muir Woods. You reopen the knowe—you reopen King Gilad’s knowe, lost to us for over a hundred years—and you send out letters to announce that you are the rightful Queen of the Mists.” Pixies make a surprisingly good messenger service when bribed, and Muir Woods was swarming with them.
Everyone stared at me like I had lost my mind. Everyone but Quentin, who just nodded, looking thoughtful.
“In the Mists,” said Arden, without varying her expression at all.
I smirked.
“Are you insane?” asked May.
“She’s insane,” said Danny.
“The Queen will have to attack immediately or risk granting legitimacy to the challenge,” said Quentin. “She won’t even have to wait three days. That kind of treason warrants immediate response, if there’s any chance that people will take it seriously.”
I nodded. “Exactly. And reopening the lost knowe of King Gilad is the sort of thing people are going to take pretty damn seriously.”
“What good does it do me to get myself killed?” asked Arden. “I don’t have an army!”
“You have the Undersea. You’ll have as many men as Sylvester can provide.”
“How is this helping me get my brother back?”
“I’ve been in the Queen’s dungeons before.” I looked to Tybalt. “Iron isn’t really a problem for me right now. So a little jailbreak shouldn’t be that big a deal.”
He blinked as the full scope of what I was asking hit him. “You want to break into the Queen’s knowe. October. Have you lost your mind?”
“You know it’s a good plan when it gets everyone to ask if I’m crazy,” I said amiably. “No, I have not lost my mind. The Queen will have to answer Arden’s challenge with as much force as she can muster, and she’s not going to be expecting anyone to be dishonorable enough to make a sneak attack.”