Ashes of Honor

“And lose her mother—assuming Bridget can be allowed to live freely after what I’ve done to her.” Etienne sighed. “I’ve lived my life by Faerie’s laws. I’ve served even when I wondered whether service was truly the only path open to me. But I’ve never before questioned this strongly whether those laws were fair.”

“Yeah, well. The humans call us ‘the Fair Folk’ because they’re trying to make us act that way. Not because we already do.” I raked my hair back with one hand. “Is there anything else I need to know before I start moving on this?”

“You know everything I do.” Etienne took a step back. He didn’t look away. “I’ll have your first payment sent over in the morning, as soon as the banks are open.”

I briefly considered explaining the concept of the ATM to him but decided against it. Quentin once spent most of an afternoon trying to explain “online banking” to me, and I walked away with a headache and the sincere urge to send mankind back to the Stone Age. As long as Etienne knew how to make a withdrawal, I was happy. “All right. I’ll call if I find anything.”

“Yes. I suppose you will.” Etienne glanced over his shoulder to the door. “I understand that this is terribly cowardly of me, but would you mind very much if I were to—?”

Understanding dawned. “You can go ahead and teleport out,” I said. “I’ll explain things to the others. We’re going to find her, Etienne. You have my word.” I wasn’t going to promise him we’d find her alive—I try to be optimistic, but that doesn’t make me an idiot. He looked relieved, all the same.

“I haven’t always been a good friend to you, October, and I regret that,” he said, tone grave. “I’ll never forget that you were willing to do this for me. Believe that.”

“I do,” I said.

Etienne bowed. Then he turned away, using one hand to transcribe a wide arch in the air. A glowing circle appeared in front of him as the smell of limes and cedar smoke filled the room. I could see one of the halls at Shadowed Hills through the circle; a faint hint of rose perfume came wafting through, making an odd counterpart to the scent of Etienne’s magic. Then he stepped into the portal, and it closed behind him.

“I need more coffee,” I said loudly, and walked to the office door. “Now I’m opening the door.” I grasped the knob, counted to three, and pulled.

As expected, Tybalt was standing in the hall.

“Feeling subtle tonight, are we?” I asked, brushing past him on my way to the stairs. “How long were you standing there?”

“Long enough,” he said, turning to follow me. “Is this going to be an issue?”

“No. I knew one of you would be listening and that it wouldn’t be May; she’s the loudest. Tactically, keeping her downstairs is the right thing to do.” I glanced back at him as I walked down the stairs. “You could have brought me a fresh cup of coffee, you know.”

“May thought the smell would betray my presence.”

“May was probably right,” I said, reaching the bottom of the stairs.

“May usually is.” May stepped out of the kitchen, holding out a fresh mug. “Peace offering?”

“Accepted.” I exchanged my empty mug for her full one, taking a long drink of scalding coffee before I shouted, “Quentin! Wherever you are, stop being there, and get in here!”

“That bad?” asked May.

“Perhaps worse,” said Tybalt. I raised an eyebrow in his direction. He shook his head. “I’m not being flippant, October. As I said before, I heard enough.”

“That’s good. Can I assume you’re still here because you’re willing to help with this?”

“You can.”

May looked between us. “Is this the part where I start freaking out?”

“If you think it would help,” I said. Quentin emerged from the kitchen with Spike—the household’s resident rose goblin, a sort of animate cat-shaped rosebush with an unfortunate tendency to jump on my lap without warning—riding on his shoulder. I saluted the pair of them with my coffee mug. “Great, we’re all here. Follow me.”

I led the way to the living room, where I put my mug down atop the pile of papers that obscured our coffee table and turned to face the others.

“Here’s the short form,” I said. “Etienne had a relationship with a human woman while Luna and Rayseline were missing. It ended when his duties at Shadowed Hills became too pressing. He hasn’t seen her since then. Unfortunately, what he didn’t know was that Bridget was pregnant when they broke up.”

“Etienne has a changeling?” asked Quentin, tone both amazed and horrified.

“Yeah,” I said, looking at him levelly. “Is there a problem with that?”

Quentin started to reply. Then he stopped, took a deep breath, and said, “I don’t know.”

He looked utterly ashamed of himself, which said a lot about how far he’d come since we met. Quentin started out as your average pureblood, convinced that he was innately superior to the changelings and just as convinced that there was nothing wrong with that. I’d started slapping that attitude out of him almost immediately, and it had worked, sometimes surprisingly well—for a little while, he’d even had a human girlfriend. They didn’t have a happy ending. People who play faerie bride so rarely do.

“Her name is Chelsea,” I said. “There’s nothing wrong with the fact that she exists, but there’s something very wrong with the fact that up until today, Etienne didn’t know about it.”

Tybalt nodded; he’d already heard this much. Quentin gaped at me, shame melting into surprise. It was May who spoke, exclaiming, “WHAT?!”

“He didn’t know she existed. He hasn’t been monitoring her. And her mother teaches Folklore at UC Berkeley.”

Now it was Tybalt’s turn to stare at me. He’d apparently missed that part. “He was fool enough to court a folklorist?” he asked. “Did he wish to be the one to betray Faerie’s existence to the mortals?”

“I doubt he thought about it. People usually don’t when they’re in love.” I raked a hand through my hair again, this time pressing my fingers against the base of my skull. It wouldn’t stop the night I was having from giving me a headache, but it made me feel a little better. “Chelsea’s mother knows she’s not human. We can’t change that, although we’ll probably have to deal with it before this is over.”

“Wait—you mean that’s not the problem?” asked May. “Because call me naïve, but that sure sounds like the problem to me.”

“It’s a problem, but it’s not the main problem.” I pulled my hand out of my hair, picking up my coffee cup. “Chelsea is missing. She disappeared earlier today, in full view of her mortal friends. They said she ‘just vanished.’”

“Sounds like she figured out how to teleport,” said May.

“Or someone figured out she existed and thought she’d be a great way of getting at Etienne,” I said. “Maybe I’m being paranoid, but after the last few years, I figure I’ve earned a little paranoia.”

“What do we do now?” asked Quentin.

It was a simple question. It still made me smile, just a little. The situation was bad, and it was going to get worse before it was over…but I was part of a “we” now. Once upon a time, not that long ago, I would have been trying to do this on my own, even if there were people willing to help. I hadn’t learned to be part of the “we.” I hadn’t realized how much I needed it.

“We have to find her, and we have to find her fast. I’m going to call Walther and ask him to talk to Bridget, as a fellow faculty member. Tybalt—”

“If you ask that I leave, you will be sorely disappointed by my answer, and I will be even more disappointed by you,” he said, with unexpected sharpness.

I blinked. “I wasn’t going to ask you to leave. Can you ask your cats to watch for anything out of the ordinary, like an appearing-disappearing Tuatha teenager bopping around the city? We need to figure out where she’s been, so we can get the scent of her magic and start tracking her.”

“Of course,” said Tybalt, not looking entirely mollified.

“What about me?” asked May.

“I’m going to want you to stay here and coordinate things.”

My former Fetch frowned. “There has to be more I can do than just that.”

“I’m sure there will be. For the moment, though, I need someone at the house to answer the phone, answer