Ashes of Honor

“Whoa,” I said. “Medieval political propaganda.”

Quentin didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. The way he was wrinkling his nose said everything for him.

Li Qin chuckled. “It takes most people like that the first time. When Jan started sending me here to negotiate for peace along our borders, I thought she was mad at me. This way.” She started down the hall. The thick, ornately patterned carpet muffled her footsteps entirely.

That carpet…the pattern was vertigo-inducing enough to make my stomach turn if I tried to look at it while I walked, leaving me with a choice between the horrible tapestries—bad—and the dancing globes of light—just as bad. I settled for staring straight ahead, trying not to look at anything but the back of Li Qin’s head.

Maybe talking would help. I cleared my throat and asked, “So she just lets you run around the knowe? Even though you’re from Tamed Lightning?”

“When January was alive, refusing me a host’s courtesies would have been an aggressive act. Riordan is never aggressive unless she’s confident of having the upper hand. We were always small, but an unprovoked move against us would have brought Shadowed Hills into the fight, on our side. She wasn’t going to risk it.” Li Qin kept walking. “Now that I’m a widow, etiquette states she can’t refuse me any privilege I had while I was still the wife of a Countess. It’s a useful, if slightly stupid, arrangement of manners.”

“Seven years from the death of a spouse or child, if you’re the parent or consort of a noble,” said Quentin. I glanced his way. He shrugged. “There’s a book we have to memorize.”

“Yet one more reason for me to be glad I was never a child of the nobility.” Daughter of a Firstborn, yes; noble, no. My mother doesn’t have a title. I guess no one ever thought she needed one.

“Here we are.” Li Qin stopped at a door that would have been almost tasteful, if it hadn’t been for the gilded crown molding that surrounded it, like a giant picture frame. It swung open at her touch, revealing a room that appeared to have been decorated entirely in white velvet. Six shades of white velvet. It was like a whipped cream explosion.

“Wow, this just gets classier all the time.” I started toward the door, and froze. The air currents in the hall had shifted when Li Qin opened the new room; not much, but enough that the natural airflow was bringing me different scents.

I smelled sycamore smoke and calla lilies.

“Chelsea,” I whispered.

“Toby?” Quentin looked at me, eyes wide. “What’s up?”

I didn’t answer. Instead, I dug a hand into my pocket, pulling out the Luidaeg’s Chelsea-chaser. It was blazing a bright fire-engine red. Quentin gasped, pulling out his own charm. It was the same color.

“She’s here.” I looked up, toward Li Qin. “Can you cover for me?”

“Until the time of your audience, yes. After that…” She shrugged helplessly. “I’ll do what I can, but I don’t recommend attracting the attention of her guards.”

“Yeah, I’ll do my best.” I reached into my other pocket, dug out the car keys, and tossed them to Quentin. “You know what to do.”

His mouth dropped open as my meaning hit home. “You can’t seriously mean to—”

“Go running off alone so that if one of us winds up getting snagged by Riordan’s invisible goons, the other one can keep looking for Chelsea and Raj? Yeah, I can.” I forced a smile. It didn’t feel sincere. I didn’t care. “Besides, what’s the worst that can happen? You keep Li safe. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

With that, I turned and walked away, letting the Luidaeg’s charm lead me deeper into Riordan’s knowe, where hopefully, Chelsea—and through her, Raj—would be waiting.

FOURTEEN

THE DEEPER I WENT into Riordan’s knowe, the more obvious it became that she took her decorating tips from a Vegas casino, with dashes of the Moulin Rouge thrown in to spice things up. There was no neon, probably because she couldn’t get it to stabilize in the Summerlands. Globes of witchlight and those damn green candles more than made up the difference.

There was one nice thing about the place: it was so garish that there was no chance I’d start going in a circle. I would have needed to be blind to wind up in the same room twice without knowing it. The Luidaeg’s charm pulled me onward, glow intensifying until it hurt to look directly at it. I caught hints and wisps of Chelsea’s magic, like the ghosts of sycamore trees and lilies. It was almost faint enough to be my imagination, but the charm was glowing, and I trusted the Luidaeg’s magic.

The carpets in the knowe muffled my footsteps, which meant they were doing the same for anyone else who happened to be wandering the halls. If I hadn’t been paying such close attention, I might have missed the sound of someone talking up ahead. I froze. I didn’t know who it was, but I knew that they weren’t with me; neither Li Qin nor Quentin would have been speaking that openly while they walked around Riordan’s knowe, and they probably wouldn’t have been wandering around unescorted.

I pressed myself against the wall, planning to hide behind the nearest tapestry. The fabric buckled under my weight, sending me plummeting. I managed to clap my free hand over my mouth before I landed on my ass. All that escaped from between my fingers was a faint squeak, barely audible even to me. The red light from the Luidaeg’s charm cast a bloody glow on the room I’d fallen into. It was a small antechamber, barely bigger than a closet. It was the most plainly decorated room I’d seen since we arrived in Dreamer’s Glass, all bare walls and uncarpeted hardwood floor. That was a relief.

I climbed to my feet, moving slowly to keep from being heard by whoever was coming down the hall. The voice that was coming closer outside the tapestry, on the other hand…I wrapped my fingers tightly around the Luidaeg’s charm, dimming the glow as much as I could. Enough still seeped out to make the walls look bloody. I closed my eyes.

“—you, she’s in my damn receiving room. I don’t know what you’re intending to do about this, but our deal did not include me having unexpected guests.” Riordan sounded annoyed. She would probably have been more annoyed if she’d known I was there. Since I didn’t hear any other voices, I assumed she was on the phone. “I want you to fix this. I don’t care what it takes, you fix it. I have things to do.”

There was a pause while the person on the other end of her call answered. Riordan’s snort was so loud that she had to be passing directly in front of the tapestry concealing me.

“Oh, is that so? Look, Mister, you’re going to have a much bigger world of trouble than I am if you don’t take care of this, and take care of it now. I have more to worry about—”

Her words faded into unintelligibility as she moved on down the hall. I stayed frozen until even the faint echoes of her voice were gone. Then I let out a breath, straightened, and unwrapped my fingers from around the Luidaeg’s charm. That had been close. Too close: if I didn’t find Chelsea soon, I was going to need to head back to the others.

I tugged the tapestry aside and peered out into the hall. There was no one there. Even so, it never hurts to be careful. I closed my eyes and breathed in, filtering through the scents in the air, looking for traces of the Folletti. There were none. For the moment, at least, I was alone.

The tapestry slid back into place with a heavy swishing sound as I crept out of my hiding place and resumed letting the charm tug me along, thinking as I walked. Riordan wasn’t happy about one of her visitors. Li Qin was a familiar face, and Riordan would hardly be demanding someone “fix it” when Li Qin was within her rights to be here. No, she had to be complaining about me. Which brought up a more interesting question: who was she complaining to?

The Luidaeg’s charm was dimming. It was still glowing red; it was just…duller, as if its batteries were going out. Or as though Chelsea was moving again. I swore softly and picked up my pace, trying to let the charm lead me to where I needed to be before I lost the trace.

I didn’t hear the wind whistling through the chandeliers until the sound was almost on top of me. I whirled, staring up into the darkness against the ceiling. That’s the trouble with Folletti. By the time you know where they’re coming from, there’s no way that you can run. And me without a big bag of coal dust to throw on them and keep them visible.