A Local Habitation
(The second book in the October Daye series)
A novel by Seanan McGuire
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:
Writing a book is a solitary exercise; actually finishing a book is not. Large portions of this book were written while traveling abroad, and my thanks go to Rika Koerte, Mike and Anne Whitacker, Talis Kimberley, and Simon Fairborne, for providing me with space while I was working in their kitchens and spare rooms (and who failed to complain about the crazy American who came to England to work on her novel). Forensic help, medical advice, and some serious logic discussion were provided by Melissa Glasser, Meredith Schwartz, and Amanda Weinstein, while my entire crack team of machete-wielding proofreaders provided merciless feedback and a lot of textual baby- sitting. This wouldn’t be the book it is without them, or without Chris Mangum, who listened patiently as I complained about plot during multi-hour telephone calls.
My agent, Diana Fox, was tolerant of my endless need to whine about punctuation, and provided many excellent suggestions that helped to make the staff of ALH Computing come alive, at least for me, and my fabulous editor, Sheila Gilbert, once again cut straight to the heart of what needed to be done. Finally, thanks are due to Kate Secor, Michelle Dockrey, Rebecca New-man, and Brooke Lunderville, who put up with sharing my time with fictional people while still hitting this book with as many sticks as they could swing. (In Kate’s case, thanks also for letting me use the TiVo. It did a lot to preserve my sanity.)
My personal soundtrack while writing
Thank you for reading.
PRONUNCIATION GUIDE:
Bannick:
Banshee:
Barrow Wight:
Candela:
Coblynau:
Cornish Pixie:
Daoine Sidhe:
Djinn:
Ellyllon:
Gean-Cannah:
Glastig:
Gwragen:
Hippocampus:
Kelpie:
Kitsune:
Lamia:
The Luidaeg:
Manticore:
Nixie:
Peri:
Piskie:
Pixie:
Puca:
Roane:
Selkie:
Silene:
Tuatha de Dannan:
Tylwyth Teg:
Undine:
Will o’ Wisps:
ONE
THE LAST TRAIN OUT of San Francisco leaves at midnight; miss it and you’re stuck until morning. That’s why I was herding Stacy and Kerry down Market Street at fifteen to the witching hour, trying unsuccessfully to avoid wobbling out of my kitten-heeled shoes. After the number of drinks I’d had, my footwear had become my new arch nemesis. None of us were in any condition to drive, and only Kerry was still walking straight. I blamed her stability on her fae heritage—pureblood Hob mother, Hob changeling father—giving her the alcohol tolerance of a man three times her size. No one keeps a house cleaner than a Hob, and there’s never any dust on the liquor cabinet.
Stacy stumbled against me. Being little more than a quarter-Barrow Wight, she didn’t have Kerry’s alcohol tolerance to help her cope with the number of drinks she’d had. I grinned down at her. “Did you tell Mitch you’d be coming home smashed?”
“He’ll have worked it out,” she said. “I told him we were going out for girl-time.” She burst out laughing, taking Kerry with her. Even I couldn’t help giggling, and I was trying to stay focused long enough to get them to the train.
The lights of the station entrance beckoned, promising freedom from my drunken charges. “Come on,” I urged, trying to nudge Stacy into taking longer steps. “We’re almost there.”
