“I am,” she agreed. “I want something. I’m more likely to get it if you survive.”
“What is it that you want?”
She smiled. “That would be telling.” Before I could get mad, she added, “I’ll explain everything when this is done, and I swear, I expect nothing. I simply want you to be well-inclined toward us when the time comes for me to ask the things that need asking.”
I blinked, glancing toward the others to see if their expressions would give me any idea. Elliot ducked his head and looked away, refusing to meet my eyes. Quentin and Raj looked as confused as I felt. That was reassuring. At least I wasn’t the only one who’d managed to miss the memo. “Fine,” I said, finally. “But you’d better be ready to tell me what’s going on when we’re no longer in mortal peril.”
Elliot laughed. “So in about ten years, then?”
“Something like that.” Now for the harder one. I turned to Raj. “You’re staying.”
His eyes went wide and wounded. “What? You can’t mean that.”
“I can, and I do. Your father tried to kill me earlier today. I don’t want to put you in the line of fire if he comes after me again.” I hesitated before adding, “What he did isn’t your fault, and I’m not rejecting you. I just want you to be safe.”
“I’m a Prince of Cats!”
“And as my only heir, I need you to remain here,” said Tybalt. Raj transferred his wounded look to his uncle. Tybalt smiled. “Glare all you like, kitten. You’ll still stay behind.”
“You can’t tell me what to do forever,” said Raj.
“Yes,” agreed Tybalt. “I’m counting on that.”
There was a subtext I wasn’t getting in their conversation. Cait Sidhe successions are generally fatal. I couldn’t imagine Tybalt was looking forward to that. I decided it wasn’t important for the moment, and straightened, saying, “We need to go. Quentin, come on.”
“Okay,” he said, and rose, coming to stand beside me. “What’s the plan?”
“We go in, we find Etienne, we find Chelsea if we can, and we do our best to get out without starting a diplomatic incident too big to stop.” I turned to Tybalt. “You can handle us both?”
“So nice of you to ask me, but yes. I can handle your transport, and that of your stripling, at the same time. More than that may become a strain if it has to be maintained for terribly long, but…” Tybalt shrugged. “That is a bridge to be crossed when we come to it, I suppose.”
“Good.” I offered him my hand, gesturing for Quentin to do the same. “If Chelsea comes back here, try to stop her from leaving, and call me.”
“Someone will contact you,” said April.
“Good. Then let’s—” I stopped myself mid-sentence as a thought struck me. Dropping Tybalt’s hand, I said, briskly, “Come on,” and started at a fast walk toward the cafeteria door.
“She still does that?” asked Elliot.
Tybalt just laughed as he and Quentin followed me out into the hall. I kept walking, heading for the car as quickly as I reasonably could. When I got there, I dug the keys out of my pocket, barely pausing to check the backseat for intruders—long story—before unlocking the passenger side door and grabbing Walther’s cooler from the foot well.
“Oh!” said Quentin, sudden comprehension in his tone. “She’s getting the power dampener Walther brewed for us.”
“Thank you, Captain Exposition,” I said. The leather of my jacket was thick enough to keep the stuff from getting on me even if the glass broke. I paused before digging around in the glove compartment. I didn’t know what the Luidaeg kept there, but…“Well, I’ll be damned,” I said. “She has Baggies.” I wasn’t sure which was weirder, that the Luidaeg had them, or that I’d thought to check. Either way, they were getting put to use. I put a dose of dampener in one and a dose of counteragent in another, before tucking them into my jacket pockets. Then I paused, looking at my thermos, and sighed. “If Etienne ever doubts my devotion to doing the right thing, I will kill him,” I said.
“What?” asked Quentin.
“Nothing.” I uncapped the thermos, pouring half its contents down my throat and the other half out on the concrete. The smell of spilled coffee filled the air as I slammed the edge of the thermos against the top of the car, knocking it again and again until the interior seal came loose and I was able to yank the entire center piece free. I threw it into the car, grabbed another dose each of dampener and counteragent, and slid them carefully into the place where the center piece had been. As I’d expected, they fit perfectly.
I sighed again. “At least my thermos didn’t die for nothing.” Putting the lid back on, I twisted it as tight as it would go and tossed the whole thing over to Tybalt.
He caught it, frowning at the brightly colored plastic cylinder. “What, precisely, is this?”
“Well, the orange stuff on top is an alchemical concoction designed to block the powers of anyone it gets spilled on for a year and a day. Walther specifically said not to get it on any shapeshifters, since he has no idea what that would do; let’s try to do what the alchemist says.”
Tybalt blanched. “Yes,” he murmured. “Let’s. October, please don’t think I’m inclined to reject any gifts you choose to give me, but why, pray tell, have you chosen to give me
“If you see Chelsea, you need to dump it on her. I would have done it before, if I’d been carrying the stuff.” And if dampening her powers then and there wouldn’t have stranded us in Annwn, possibly forever. That was the sort of detail that couldn’t always be accounted for.
That didn’t seem to make Tybalt feel better. He eyed the thermos the way I would eye a venomous snake and asked, “What happens if I spill it?”
“There’s a jar of green stuff underneath the jar of orange stuff. It’s a counteragent. If you apply it within twenty minutes, you can cancel the effects of the power dampener. Or at least Walther thinks you can. This is all theory at this point.” I jabbed a finger toward the cooler. “Quentin. Gear up.”
“How come he gets the thermos?” grumbled Quentin, as he moved to retrieve jars of variously colored goo from inside the cooler.
“Because he’s the one whose side effects are completely unknown if he gets doused, whereas you get to wear baseball caps for a year, and I get to spend a lot more time sitting on the couch watching late-night television while enjoying a brief respite from being forced to leave the house. In this particular instance, we’re both better risks than Tybalt is.”
“I’m not sure whether I should be flattered or appalled,” said Tybalt.
“Neither am I,” said Quentin.
I smiled. It wasn’t a happy smile, but it was a genuine one. “You know, if I have to march off to certain doom, I can’t think of many people I’d rather be marching with.”
“You can think of any?” asked Quentin, sealing his own jars of glowing goo in Ziploc Baggies.
“Anybody who owns a tank is at the top of the list. But you’re right underneath them.” I tossed the box of Baggies back into the car and closed the door, locking it before tucking the keys back into my pocket. There was a thick patch of shadows underneath the eucalyptus trees separating the campus from the street. I gestured toward them. “Shall we?”
Tybalt nodded. “I suppose we shall.”
The three of us walked into the shadow of the trees, our pockets heavy with the promise of magic’s end. And then Quentin took Tybalt’s hand while I took hold of his elbow, and he pulled us backward into the darkness, and the world fell away again. It was time to end this. One way or another, it was time for us to find Chelsea, and bring her home.
TWENTY-ONE
WE EMERGED IN A SMALL, familiar antechamber inside Riordan’s knowe. Quentin stumbled, shivering and trying not to cough. I managed to keep my feet, barely, and only because I knew we needed to do as little knocking about as possible. We were in enemy territory now, and if we were found, things weren’t going to go well for us.
