Ashes of Honor

Quentin frowned. “Is this one of those questions where I’m supposed to work out the answer for myself, as a training thing, or is it one of the questions where you give me the answer, so I shouldn’t even bother trying?”

“The latter,” I said. “We need to talk to the Luidaeg.”

Quentin’s frown vanished, replaced by a wide grin. “I was hoping you’d say that. Do we need to go see Walther first, while we’re already in Berkeley?”

“I’ll call him and let him know the situation, but we don’t need to go by. I still want to drive past Chelsea’s school and see whether we can find the spot she disappeared from—the human authorities may have missed something—but we can head for the Luidaeg’s after that. Maybe we can even get there before dawn.”

“Can we stop for donuts?”

The question wasn’t as crazy as it sounded. Yes, we were in the beginning stages of a kidnapping investigation, and yes, time was not on our side…but if we were going to the Luidaeg, a little bribery wouldn’t hurt.

The Luidaeg is the daughter of Oberon and Maeve, which technically makes her my aunt. Maybe that’s why she hasn’t killed me yet, although it’s just as likely to be the fact that I amuse her. May says we’re reenacting The Princess Bride, one “I’ll most likely kill you in the morning” at a time. Whatever her motives, the Luidaeg is one of my strongest, and strangest, allies. If anyone would know how to handle the issue of a changeling with more power than she was supposed to have, it was the Luidaeg.

She was also the single person most likely to let me explain things without freaking out. The Luidaeg is older than any of the laws of Faerie, and remembers a time when humans and the fae consorted openly, with no lies or illusions between us. She might not approve of Chelsea, but she wouldn’t be horrified by her the way some others would be.

And the Luidaeg likes donuts. “Sure, we can stop,” I said. “What time is it?”

“Almost four-thirty.”

“Let’s get back to the right side of the Bay, park long enough for dawn to pass, and then swing by Dynamo for the early morning batch. The Luidaeg likes their salted caramel.” Quentin wrinkled his nose. I sighed. “I wouldn’t take us onto the bridge if I thought there was any chance we’d be caught out by the dawn. We have nearly an hour until sunrise. Trust me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

“Don’t call me ma’am,” I said, and started the car.

Quentin smirked.

His concern wasn’t unfounded. Dawn is anathema to faerie enchantments. Something about the way the sun hits the land during the first moments of the day tears down small spells and weakens great ones, smashing the magic out of the world. It never lasts more than ten minutes, but that was more than long enough to have a fatal car accident if I was behind the wheel when it hit. Dawn isn’t as painful for me as it was before Amandine shifted the balance of my blood, but it’s still impossible to breathe in those few minutes when the air pushes down like a blanket made of lead and everything tastes of death and ashes.

We drove down Colusa with the windows open. Patches of the smoke-and-lily scent that meant “Chelsea” appeared along the length of the street, some fresh, some faded. None of them stood out as the place she’d disappeared from, and Quentin didn’t seem to notice them at all. I stopped the car next to one of the stronger patches, frowning at him.

“Do you smell anything?”

“Not really,” he admitted. “Her room smelled like old magic, a little. Out here, there’s nothing.”

“Great. One more attraction for the freak show that is my life—apparently, Dóchas Sidhe are magic detectors, not just blood detectors. Chelsea was here. She was here a lot. I think she opened some of her doors from this spot.”

Quentin opened her notebook, riffling through the pages. “Is this the corner of Portland and Colusa?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“This says she opened a door from here to…um. To Portland, Oregon. And then back again.” He raised his head, staring at me. “Can she do that?”

“You’ve heard the old stories. What do you think?”

He closed the book. “I think we need to find her.”

“Yeah. So do I.” I glanced at the sky. Our sweep of the street had taken almost twenty minutes. “I guess we’re going to be a little late to the Luidaeg’s. I’m not risking the bridge this close to dawn.”

Quentin looked relieved. “Good.”

I snorted and started the car again, hitting the gas harder as I angled up the hill toward Tilden Park. It’s a protected nature preserve, surprisingly wild for being so close to human habitation, and it’s full of secluded picnic areas where we could wait out the sunrise without being spotted.

The sky was turning rose and gold around the edges by the time I parked in the shadow of one of the old oak groves. Quentin and I didn’t discuss what we were going to do next; we just got out of the car, both of us heading as fast as we could for the shelter of the trees. If any early morning joggers wanted to park in this lot, they’d see the car, but they wouldn’t see us. Hopefully, that would give us time to put on human disguises, hide, or both before we got caught. The car was just out of sight when the sun came up, and the world came down.

“Not as bad as it used to be” doesn’t mean “pleasant.” The light knocked the air out of my lungs. I grabbed the nearest tree, clinging for dear life as I tried to avoid crumpling to the muddy path. Dimly, through my tears, I could see Quentin doing the same thing a few trees away. The ashy smell of broken illusions rose around us.

Dawn is difficult to describe. When I was little, I honestly thought I was dying every time the sun rose. I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for Chelsea, whose mother couldn’t truly understand what she was going through or why she stopped breathing, like clockwork, every morning at sunrise. It’s the death of magic, the end of faerie time, and it hits us like a hammer.

Dawn passed quickly—dawn always passes—and we were fortunate: no joggers or pre-work dog walkers came down the path before we were able to straighten up, put our human faces back on, and make ourselves look halfway presentable.

“Well,” I said, with forced jocularity. “Ready to go and sit in rush hour traffic for the foreseeable future?”

Quentin looked at me mournfully. “Can we stop for food first? I’m starving.”

“You’re a teenage boy. You’re always starving.”

“That’s a good reason to feed me.”

I had to smile at that. “Drive-through okay?”

“After as much time as I’ve spent with you? Please. I didn’t expect anything better.”

We were still laughing as we walked out of the trees—as much a stress reaction as anything else. In addition to knocking down any small spells, the pressure of dawn tends to cause a massive fight-or-flight response, which is just cruel, since the pain of dawn makes both options impossible. The end result is a lot of extra adrenaline in the bloodstream, frequently followed by a massive collapse. There’s a reason most fae go to bed shortly after sunrise.

Our laughter died when the parking lot came into view. Quentin stopped dead. I took one more step forward, reaching back to press my palm against his chest. It was the clearest way I could tell him to stay where he was without actually speaking.

Then again, the creature stretched out on top of the car might have been enough to keep him from moving.

“Toby…”

“I see it.”

Whatever it was, it was the size of a cow, and looked like what you’d get if you somehow managed to cross a beaver and a crocodile, looked at the results, and decided what your new monster really needed was a bunch of extra teeth. Its eyes were closed, and its head was resting on its webbed forepaws. That was probably the only reason it hadn’t spotted us yet.

Keeping my hand against Quentin’s chest, I started backing him up. He went willingly. Once we were hidden by the trees, I stopped, dropping my hand. “That’s…new,” I said, slowly.

“What is it?”

“Big. Carnivorous, if the teeth are anything to go by. Big. On top of the car. Big. Possibly dangerous. Oh, and