unbearably weary. “Milady Fetch, I beg your forgiveness.”
“I’m not the one with the broken arm,” said May, putting a protective arm around Jazz’s shoulders. “Is he going to come back here?”
“I don’t know,” I said. I glanced to Tybalt, then back to the pair of them. “Call a taxi. Have it take you to Goldengreen. Count Lorden will let you stay there, and Marcia—”
“Isn’t a real healer,” snapped May, her arm tightening. Jazz whimpered. May loosened her grip. “I’m sorry, baby. You need a healer. She needs a healer!”
“Jin is in Tamed Lightning right now, but we can’t take you both through the shadows,” I said. “Even if Tybalt could carry all three of us—”
“Which I could not do, at present,” interjected Tybalt.
“—even if he could, Jazz is hurt, and neither of you is used to it.”
May grimaced. “I remember the Shadow Roads. The first time…”
“Remembering them doesn’t mean your body has adjusted,” I said. “It wouldn’t work.”
“Goldengreen doesn’t even have a real healer,” said May.
“Marcia does okay with a first aid kit, and she can put together a sling until we can get Jin to Goldengreen or Jazz to Shadowed Hills. With Samson on the loose out there, you can’t spend an hour in a cab to get to Sylvester or two hours to get to Tamed Lightning,” I said. The pounding in my head was fading, replaced by spinning as the bones of my skull knitted back together and burned through more of my body’s denuded resources.
“She’s right,” said Jazz. She straightened a bit, standing on her own. “Goldengreen is the best place for us right now.”
“Honey—”
“I mean it. We can’t stay here.” Jazz shuddered. “If he came back…”
“He won’t come back.”
“But
“I’ll call us a cab. Danny will be thrilled to drive us, as long as we don’t bleed on the seats,” said May. Moving with surprising speed, she leaned over and grabbed my wrist, jerking me toward her. I somehow managed not to fall over as I stumbled across the floor. “Come on, Toby. You’re the one who has his number memorized.”
I knew the half-murderous, half-grim look on her face. I had to go with her, or she was going to start swinging. “Tybalt, keep an eye on Jazz,” I said, letting myself be pulled out of the living room and across the hall into the kitchen.
May let go of me long enough to close the kitchen door. Then she turned to face me, slowly looking me up and down. “How bad was it?” she asked finally.
“If you were still my Fetch, you’d probably be feeling pretty shaky,” I said. “And if Amandine hadn’t shifted my blood, I’d definitely be dead. I think I saw my own intestines.”
“You sure do know how to have a good time.” She rubbed her face with one hand. It was a gesture so familiar that it hurt. I know May’s memories don’t just come from me—she has Dare’s memories, too, and the memories of the night-haunt she used to be—but sometimes looking at her is like looking in a slightly sideways mirror. “How much danger are we in, October? And how much of it is your fault?”
“I…what?”
She dropped her hand. “You’ve been trying to find a cliff to throw yourself off of since Connor died. I won’t pretend I’ve been cool with it, but I remember dying so many times—I remember being the one mourned for and the one in mourning so many times—that I’ve been willing to let it slide. I figured you’d find your way back to yourself. Only now you’ve finally found a cliff that might actually stand a chance of killing you, and you’re going to take us right over the edge with you. Why didn’t you call? Why didn’t you warn us?” She took a heavy breath, let it out, and asked, “Are you mad at us for surviving when he didn’t?”
Fetches are created when a night-haunt drinks the blood of a living person. It’s Oberon’s way of keeping the night-haunts from getting out of control and killing everyone they meet. One of the first things I did when I came back from my fourteen-year absence was go up against my former mentor, a man named Devin. He’d replaced me with two new kids, Manuel and Dare. Dare said I was her hero. I got her killed. But somehow, that didn’t change her mind, and when the night-haunt with her memories had the opportunity to help me, she took it. In the process, she got herself called as a Fetch.
She’d already died for me once. If she thought I was mad at her for not dying for me a second time, I was doing something unforgivably wrong.
My silence had lasted too long. Something hardened in May’s eyes, and she started to turn away from me. “Yeah. I thought so.”
“May, wait.” I grabbed her shoulder, stopping her. She didn’t look back at me. That was okay. She could hear me whether she was facing me or not. “I didn’t call because I didn’t think of it. That was stupid, and I’m sorry. I honestly didn’t think Samson would come here.”
“Are you going to try telling me you haven’t been attempting suicide every day since Connor died?” She looked over her shoulder without turning around, so that only a half-crescent of her face was visible. It was enough to let me see her eyes. They were the foggy no-color gray that had been in my mirror for most of my life, but the look in them wasn’t mine. It was the look I saw once in the brilliantly green eyes of a teenage girl who died because I couldn’t save her.
“No,” I said quietly. “I think you’re right. You’re all right. Tybalt accused me of the same thing, and I couldn’t even get mad, because you’re all right. But I’m done now. I’m done throwing myself off cliffs and hoping I won’t be there after I hit the bottom. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that to you. I’m sorry.”
The corner of May’s mouth pulled into a smile. “You just said you were sorry like three times.”
“It bears repeating. I have a lot to be sorry about.”
“Yeah. You do.” She finally turned to face me. “You’re sure you’re done being an idiot?”
“Well. I’m sure I’m done being more of an idiot than I normally am.”
“That’s a start.” May removed my hand from her arm. Then she stepped closer and hugged me, hard.
I’ve never been much of a hugger. There have always been people that didn’t apply to. I wrapped my arms around her, returning her embrace. Her skin smelled like cotton candy and ashes, the remnants of the magic she’d called up during the fight with Samson. Even fae who don’t have access to combat charms will tend to call their magic under that kind of duress. It’s instinctive, a way of grabbing the thinnest straws of hope the world has to offer. Since none of our races began knowing what they were capable of, it makes sense; one day, you might call your power and learn that you were capable of something you never guessed you could do.
May sighed against my shoulder, and said, “This is all fucked up.”
“Yeah, it is. But it’s going to get better.” I pushed her away. “We’ll call Danny and get him to come pick you up. Jazz will be safe at Goldengreen. Samson won’t be able to get past Dean’s wards, even if he’s dumb enough to try—which I doubt. You weren’t his target.”
“And what are you going to do?” May asked.
I managed a smile. “I’m going to eat a box of Pop-Tarts and drink all the milk in the fridge, because if I don’t give my body something else to work with, I’m going to collapse. Then I’m going to put on different clothes. What I’m wearing right now isn’t going to inspire much confidence in the people around me.”
“Those jeans are trashed,” said May. “There isn’t enough hydrogen peroxide in the world to deal with that much blood.”
“I know,” I said dolefully. “I’d just managed to get them broken in, too.”
“The true tragedy of the day is at last revealed,” said Tybalt from the doorway. “Not the assassination attempts, the injuries, or the betrayals. The loss of a pair of denim trousers.”
“Hey, man, I worked
“We grew concerned when your disappearance was not followed by the sound of screaming, and I wanted to be sure our Lady Fetch had not elected to bury one of the kitchen knives in your eye.” Tybalt offered a bow toward May. “I appreciate your failure to stab her. I doubt she has any blood left to lose.”
“I took some of that Canadian Tylenol Quentin keeps in the medicine cabinet,” said Jazz. “It’s helping a little,
