Ashes of Honor

“Sometimes I want to shake J. R. R. Tolkien for that one,” I said. “Faerie never ‘faded.’ That was something Middle Earthy. The citizens of Faerie just got tired of being used for our pots of gold and magic shoes. We disappeared for our own good. There are more of us than you think.” Not as many as there used to be but, from the look on Bridget’s face, a lot more than she was comfortable with.

“So you can take our children whenever you want, and there’s nothing we can do to stop you?”

I took a breath. “I’m going to skip the part where you never told Etienne you were pregnant—which was sort of you taking his chance to be a father away, the way you’ve been afraid Faerie would take your chance to be a mother—and go straight to saying no, there’s not. There never has been. Some fae befriend the mortals; some play tricks on them for fun. Some of us steal children. Some of us get them back. Now, please. Did she say anything else? Anything she might have seen, or smelled…?” Chelsea wasn’t accustomed to being around other fae. The scent of their magic wouldn’t be background noise to her yet.

“She said she was scared.” Bridget straightened. She was still glaring at me. I was starting to think of that as her default expression. “My little girl is scared. If you’re not going to bring her home to me, what good are you?”

The fact that I was being lectured by an angry human woman who’d already hidden a changeling from her fae parent once wasn’t escaping me. I just didn’t know what I could do about it. I looked at Bridget as calmly as I could and said, “If you have information, call. We’ll do whatever we can to be sure that Chelsea is found safely, but we’re not here for you to abuse.”

“Don’t challenge me, Fair One,” she said sharply.

I sighed. “I’ll challenge you all I want. What are you going to do, call the police and tell them the faeries took your kid? You’ll wind up under psychiatric evaluation, and Chelsea will still be missing.”

“I can tell the police you took her.”

The threat was made with absolute calm. I had to pause, considering the nerve it took for her to stand in her living room, with no one to save her if she screamed, and threaten me. She didn’t know what Quentin and I were capable of. All she knew was that we weren’t human. And that didn’t change the part where she was threatening me. One unfortunate downside of my continuing involvement in the mortal world: I’m actually vulnerable to threats in a way that, say, Tybalt isn’t. If the police wanted to come for me, they knew where I lived.

Quentin started to open his mouth. I signaled him to stop before he could say something we’d both regret. Instead, I said, “You could do that. Hell, they might even pick me up, make my life difficult for a few hours. But since there’s nothing to tie me to Chelsea before she disappeared, they won’t be able to hold me. All you’ll manage to do is endanger her further by taking me away from my work and guarantee that when I do find her, I won’t be feeling that charitably toward you. Is that really how you want this to go?”

Bridget’s face fell, bravado dissolving as she started to cry. “I just want my daughter back,” she said. “Please. Please, get me my daughter back.”

I sighed. “I’ve already told you I’ll do what I can. That’s all I can do. And you need to stop treating me like the enemy, okay?”

Mutely, Bridget nodded.

It was hard not to feel bad for her. When I played faerie bride, I always knew my child might not be human enough for the mortal world. The threat of a lifetime spent in the Summerlands was something I considered, seriously, before I slept with Cliff. Bridget didn’t have that. She thought she was going to have her child forever, and once she realized there was a risk—once she realized Chelsea wasn’t human—she took the steps she thought she needed to take in order to protect her daughter.

Reaching a hand into my pocket, I produced the jar of power dampener. “This is why we came. If Chelsea teleports home, dump this on her. It will nullify her powers temporarily—long enough for you to call me and let me come to make things right.”

“It stops fae magic?” asked Bridget, a new light in her eyes as she reached for the jar.

I didn’t give it to her. “Let’s be clear about this. You have one shot. One. If you don’t take it, if Chelsea comes here and you’ve used this stuff for something other than stopping her, you will never see your daughter again. Do you understand? This isn’t a tool you can use to get your revenge. This is a way to save your little girl.”

The light went out again. Bridget nodded. “I understand.”

“Good. Don’t make me regret this.” I placed the jar in her hand before I turned to Quentin. “Let’s go. Bridget, we’ll call you if we learn anything. Until then, don’t do anything stupid.” I paused, a thought occurring to me. “Have you warded your house against the fae? You know, with things like your frying pan?”

“Yes, I have,” said Bridget. “Wouldn’t you?”

“Probably, but you need to take it all down. If there’s any chance you’ve hit on something that works, it’s going to keep Chelsea from letting herself in, and that’s the opposite of what we want.”

“I will,” she said.

“Good. Oh, and Bridget?” Quentin looked at me, bemused. I kept my eyes on Bridget. “If Chelsea comes back, call me. Don’t try to run. We’ll find you. I’m sorry, but you can’t hide anymore. It’s time to deal with all the things you were running away from in the first place.”

I didn’t wait to hear what she would say to that. I simply turned to the door, gesturing for Quentin to follow me, and stepped out into the cool air of the Berkeley morning. Our charms were attuned; Raj was missing; and somewhere, a group of people were working together to keep a changeling girl captive. It was time for us to find out exactly why.

TWELVE

“GET YOUR CHELSEA-CHASER OUT,” I said, once Quentin and I were safely in the car. “The Luidaeg said they’d lead us to her. Let’s see if we can figure out how that’s going to work.”

“Raj—”

“We’ll find him. Chelsea’s the one who might destroy Faerie, so we’ll find her first.”

Quentin nodded. “Okay.” He dug a hand into his pocket, pulling out the charm. He frowned at it. “Is it supposed to do something? It’s just glowing.”

“I don’t know. The Luidaeg didn’t give me the instruction booklet. Shake it or something, see what it does.”

“Shake it?” Quentin looked at me as if I’d just grown a second head before shrugging and shaking the sphere. It went from white to foxfire green. Then, with a chime like bells, it turned bright red and jerked toward the windshield, dragging Quentin’s hand with it. His seat belt pulled him up short before the charm could slam itself—or my squire—into the glass.

“O-kay, that’s new,” I said. “Which way does it want us to go?”

“That way.” Quentin pointed with his free hand. “It wants us to go that way.”

“I love really specific navigation charms,” I said, and started the engine.

The Luidaeg’s charm led us along surface streets to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, where we had to slow down to account for the increase in traffic. It kept on glowing as we took the entrance to I-880, heading toward the South Bay. I frowned. “Quentin?”

“Yeah?”

“Here.” I tossed him my phone. “Call April. I want you to ask whether she’s noticed anything unusual in the last couple of days. Weird lights where they’re not supposed to be, unfamiliar magical signatures, stuff like that.”

Quentin blinked. “You think we’re going to Tamed Lightning?”

I indicated the highway with a wave of my hand. “It’s starting to look that way.”

“Huh,” he said, and dialed.

The County of Tamed Lightning is located in the mortal city of Fremont. Like many more recently founded fiefdoms, they don’t have a proper knowe; instead, their holdings are consolidated in a shallowing, which also