Too bad I was going to have to get closer—a lot closer—if I wanted the stuff to be of any use. “Is this the power dampener?” He nodded. “Tell me about it.”
“For a start, do not ingest. The only way this could be more toxic is if I milked a rattlesnake into it to add a little extra zing.” Walther put the beaker down, looking relieved when it was safely on the counter. “It’s meant for topical application. Skin contact triggers its effects.”
“Which are…?” I prompted
“It blocks all access to higher magic for a year and a day. No illusions, transformations, blood workings, anything. I’m not sure what would happen if you spilled it on a shapeshifter, so let’s try not to find out.” Walther grimaced. “If there’s a counter for the stuff, I haven’t been able to find it. It takes about twenty minutes for the effects to stabilize, but they’ll kick in almost immediately.” He picked up another beaker. This one was filled with pale green liquid that didn’t glow at all. “Scrub off all traces of the potion with this and you should be fine—stress on should. I wouldn’t want to wait until minute nineteen before I started looking for a place to rinse my hands.”
“Got it. At least there’s a window.” I eyed the open beakers. “Is there any way you can decant those into something we can carry without worrying about spilling things on ourselves every time we hit a pothole?”
“I was working on that when you showed up.” Walther traded beakers again, waving me and Quentin back. He didn’t have to tell us twice. We stepped clear before he began pouring the glowing liquid into a set of thin-lipped glass jars. “This isn’t the most stable thing in the world.”
“Is it going to explode?”
“No, but it may modify its own properties if you wait too long to use it.”
That didn’t sound good. “Modify how?”
“Maybe it’ll stop working. Maybe it’ll turn permanent. I have no way of telling. Alchemy is half science, half magic—and when it’s something like this, all guesswork.” Walther’s shoulders sagged as the last of the glowing liquid trickled into the final jar. He turned to place the beaker gingerly in a waiting basin. Catching my curious expression, he said, “Milk. That should neutralize the potion on the glass, and if I leave it overnight, it’ll be safe to handle.”
“This becomes a more and more exciting adventure.” I finished my coffee, setting the empty cup down on the nearest desk before saying, offhandedly, “Someone tried to flood the Court of Cats with lava. Chelsea was there, but I don’t think she did it.”
“Was anyone hurt?” asked Walther.
“Tybalt was killed, but he got better. Kings of Cats are annoying like that.” The words felt odd. It was odder still to realize that they made total sense to me. “There weren’t any other serious injuries that I saw. I was a little distracted trying to figure out where Chelsea had been.”
“Did you?” asked Quentin.
In answer, I dug out the charm the Luidaeg had provided and held it up, letting him see the way that it was glowing. Then I paused. “Hey. Get yours out. I want to see something.”
Quentin frowned, looking puzzled, but did as he was told. His charm was still dark. I leaned over and tapped it with my own charm. There was a chiming sound, and the charm in Quentin’s hand flared into sudden light. He yelped, nearly dropping it. I made a grab with my free hand, closing my fingers around his before he could let the charm go.
“Careful,” I cautioned.
“What did you do?”
“My charm was already tuned to Chelsea. Touching it to yours passed the tuning along.”
“You could’ve warned me,” he grumbled, giving the glowing charm a mistrustful look before sliding it back into his pocket. “Now what?”
“Now we take what we came for, and we go.” I turned back to Walther. “I swear I’m not trying to be rude, but I have two missing teenagers, and—”
“Two?” interrupted Quentin. “What do you mean, two?”
“Quentin—”
“Why was it so important that Tybalt had to come and see you? The Court of Cats does just fine without our help all the time. Who’s the other missing kid, Toby?”
The cold edge on Quentin’s questions told me he already knew the answer; he just wanted to hear me say it. I sighed. “Raj disappeared when Chelsea tore through the Court of Cats,” I said. “Tybalt thinks he was knocked through the portal she used to leave. He obviously can’t access the Shadow Roads wherever he is, or he’d be back by now. That’s why Tybalt thought I needed to be involved. Because I’m already looking for Chelsea, and Raj is…”
If he weren’t Cait Sidhe, I’d have claimed him as my squire a long damn time ago.
“…my responsibility as much as he is Tybalt’s,” I finished, with barely a pause. “We all know that. This is just making it a little closer to formal.” And when we got Raj back, we were going to make it all the way formal if we possibly could. I was already training both of them. I might as well be allowed to send them both to pick up Chinese food.
Quentin scowled. “We have to get him back.”
“I know.”
“This will help.” Walther stepped between us, holding a disposable Styrofoam cooler. “You have four jars of the dampening solution and four jars of the counter solution. Do not drop this. I don’t think I could handle mixing that stuff again.”
“Noted.” I tucked the Luidaeg’s charm into my pocket and took the cooler. “You do good work,” I said, avoiding the forbidden “thank you.”
“I like a challenge,” he replied, with a small smile. He knew what I wasn’t saying, and he appreciated it.
“Good, because I think we’re going to have plenty of challenges ahead of us. Quentin?” But he was already halfway to the door, not looking back as he made his way out of the room. I cast Walther an apologetic look and followed him. Not only was time something we couldn’t afford to waste, Quentin was the only one who knew where the car was.
Walther walked me as far as his office door and stopped there, waving tiredly as Quentin stalked down the length of the hall and I followed. Soon Walther was out of sight, and soon after that, we were outside and Quentin was charging down a gravel path toward the faculty parking lot.
I didn’t dare run with the cooler full of jars, so I settled for walking as fast as I could. When it became clear that I wasn’t going to catch up with him like that, I stopped, tucking the cooler under one arm as I placed the first two fingers of my now-free hand in my mouth and whistled shrilly. Every visible head—human, canine, and squirrel—turned toward me. Every head but one. Quentin just stopped where he was, hands fisted at his sides, head down.
He stayed there as I walked the rest of the short distance between us. Once I pulled up alongside him, he started to walk again, pacing me.
“We’re going to find him.”
Silence.
“Tybalt wouldn’t have told me Raj was missing if he didn’t think we could help.”
Silence.
“If this is going to interfere with your ability to help me look for Chelsea, I swear by the root and the tree, I will send you back to the house right now.”
Now his head came up, eyes narrowing. The sunlight cast bronze glimmers off the metallic halo of his hair. I remember when he was a cornsilk blond, wide-eyed and innocent, and would never have dreamed of looking at his sworn knight like that. Good times. And I wouldn’t trade a single glare to have them back again.
“You wouldn’t,” he said.
“I would,” I replied calmly. “What’s more, I would make sure May and Jazz were under strict instructions to keep you in the house, no matter how much you argued. So how about you keep on working with me, and we bring them both home?”
Quentin sighed, seeming to deflate. “He’s my best friend,” he said, like he was admitting something strange and surprising.
I blinked. “Yeah. I know. So?”
“So he’s…he’s who he is, and I’m who I am. People like us aren’t friends. We’re pass
ing acquaintances. Maybe. If we’re not busy hating each other all the time.”
“Ah.” Raj was a Prince of Cats; Quentin was the son of some unidentified noble family. They weren’t the sort of people who should have become friends. But they had. I liked to think I had something to do with that, although, if I were being honest, I had to admit that a psychopath named Blind Michael had more to do with it than I did. As a Prince of Cats, Raj had been pretty sequestered until Blind Michael kidnapped him. If that hadn’t happened, we might never have met at all. It’s funny how people can change your life without meaning to. Even the fucked-up, crazy people leave everything different when they go away.
Well, Raj wasn’t getting off the hook that easily. He might be missing, but he wasn’t free of us yet.
We were at the mouth of the faculty parking lot. The Luidaeg’s car was nowhere in sight. I squinted around at the few open parking spots before giving up and turning to Quentin. “Okay, where’d you park?”
“Over here.” He led me to a seemingly empty space under one of the big oak trees that dropped dead leaves and acorns with impunity on the vehicles below it. After glancing around to be sure we weren’t observed, he waved his hand. The brief smell of heather and steel rose around us, and the illusion that had been concealing the car popped like a soap bubble.
“Very good,” I said. Quentin’s illusions had been improving steadily since he finished with the worst parts of puberty and settled in to maturing into an adult Daoine Sidhe. I wasn’t in charge of that part of his education—Daoine Sidhe illusions are so far beyond me that I would have been barely more than useless—but Sylvester was doing an awesome job. I’d have to tell him so, the next time I got the chance.
Normally, Quentin would have taken a moment to preen and look pleased with himself. Instead, he smiled wanly and offered up the keys. “I didn’t want to bother Walther for a parking pass when he was working with dangerous chemicals.”
“Hey, what’s the point of having magical powers if you can’t use them to avoid parking tickets?” I took the keys before handing him the cooler. “Don’t drop this.”
“I won’t,” he said. That seemed to exhaust our possible conversation; we were both silent as we climbed into the car. He put the cooler on the floor, anchoring it between his feet. I fastened my seat belt, stuck the key in the ignition, and started the car. Time for us to go.
We drove away from campus and down Shattuck Avenue in that same frozen silence. Quentin didn’t even turn the radio on—something that was practically unheard of in my experience. I stole a few glances in his direction, but decided not to push the matter. He’d talk when he was ready, and we were both going to need our strength for what was ahead of us.
Possibly sooner than I’d thought. I hit the brakes when I saw the police cars parked outside Bridget’s house. Quentin yelped as he was thrown forward against his seat belt. “Ow! Hey!”
“Sorry. Sorry.” I took a deep breath, steadying myself, and drove on until I saw an open space about halfway down the block, sandwiched between a red sports car and a silver-gray VW station wagon. I eased the Luidaeg’s car up to the sidewalk and killed the engine, not bothering with a don’t-look-here.
Quentin checked the cooler to be sure its contents were intact before twisting in his seat and staring, wide-eyed, at the police cars behind us. “Toby…”
“I saw them.”
“What are they doing here?”
“I think we’re about to find out. Leave the cooler.” I undid my belt, leaning over to open the cooler and pull out one dose of the power-dampener goo. I tucked it into my jacket pocket, ignoring Quentin’s puzzled look, and climbed out of the car. Quentin followed, and together we walked along the sidewalk to Bridget’s house.
The door was standing open. I heard voices as we came up the walkway—Bridget’s and two others, both unfamiliar. The owner of one of those voices appeared as we walked up the porch steps: a frowning, brown-haired man in a Berkeley Police Department uniform.
“Can I help you?”
I forced myself to smile. “Hi—I’m a friend of Bridget’s. She asked me to come over?” Hopefully, the fact that I looked faintly worried despite my smile would work in my favor. Anyone who was actually a friend of Bridget’s would look worried if they found the police in her house. Quentin didn’t say anything, but he stepped closer to me, letting his obvious youth speak for him. He was the right age to be one of Chelsea’s friends from school.
We must not have looked too suspicious, because the officer didn’t reach for his handcuffs. He just shook his head, and said, “Ms. Ames is not prepared for company at the moment. Perhaps you should come back later.”
“Who’s there?” Bridget appeared behind the officer, blinking when she saw me. “October. I wasn’t expecting you until later.”
“I thought you could use a little help.” My eyes flicked to the officer and then back to her. “What’s going on?”
“It’s been long enough since Chelsea disappeared that I can file a credible missing persons report,” said Bridget.
There are times when I think I’ll never understand the human world. Maybe if I’d grown up as a part of it, but now…there’s no way. In Faerie, if a child disappears, you don’t wait forty-eight hours before you move. You go out and you get them back, unless they’ve been taken by something too powerful for you to defeat. And that doesn’t happen often these days.
“What?” asked Quentin, sounding honestly confused.
“Oh,” I said, surreptitiously nudging him with my elbow. He stopped talking. Good squire. “So she’s not sleeping over at Brittany’s house?”
Bridget shook her head. “No, she’s not.”
The officer didn’t ask who Brittany was. It’s a common enough name that it was safe to assume every girl in America knew at least one “Brittany” well enough to sleep over at her house.
“Damn,” I said.
“My thoughts exactly.” She placed a hand on the officer’s arm. “Can we finish taking my statement, Officer Daugherty? October’s been a great comfort to me.” Bridget didn’t blink or hesitate as she lied to the policeman; she kept her eyes on his the whole time, and her tone was steady. She must have been thinking of her excuse since they showed up on her doorstep.
“We can wait on the porch,” I offered.
Bridget shot me a relieved look. Officer Daugherty slowly nodded.
“If your friends don’t mind waiting, I believe we’re just about done.”
“Thank you.” Bridget took her hand off the officer’s arm, turning to me. “I won’t be a minute,” she said.
“Okay,” I replied.
Officer Daugherty didn’t say anything. But he closed the door before he turned away.
Quentin and I retreated to the edge of the porch, sitting down on the low stone wall that separated it from the rest of the yard. “Why did she call the m—” He paused, catching the word “mortal” before it could quite escape his lips.
“Kids can’t just disappear anymore; people notice,” I said, pitching my voice low enough that they wouldn’t be able to hear me inside. “One of Chelsea’s friends probably called them as soon as she went missing. It just took until now for them to take the report seriously.”
Quentin frowned again, clearly not understanding the situation. That was okay. I wasn’t sure I understood it myself. I just knew enough about mortal police work to know that this was all according to procedure.
There are times I really wish I’d joined the police force. I would have access to better materials, more backup, and a hell of a lot more forensic training. Then I realize I’d also be bound by rules like the ones that kept these officers from showing up until Chelsea had been gone for more than a day. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to handle that.
About ten minutes passed before the front door opened and Officer Daugherty emerged, followed by a black-haired female officer. They nodded politely as they passed, but that was the extent of their interaction; either
Bridget had managed to really sell the idea that we were friends of hers, or they still weren’t treating Chelsea’s disappearance as a kidnapping. That was probably for the best, at least for them. There was no way they’d be able to follow her into Faerie. Not if they wanted to walk away from this case alive and reasonably sane.
Bridget appeared in the doorway a few seconds later. She beckoned us into the house. Once we were inside, she shut the door and demanded, “What are you doing here?”
“What were the police doing here?” I countered. “We said we’d help.”
“I called them when I was still trying to believe the faeries hadn’t come and carried my little girl away,” she said, glaring at me. “I couldn’t stop them coming in when they finally deigned to show up.”
I took a deep breath, counting to ten before I said, “Okay. I’m sorry they took so long.”
“I’m sorry you took so long!”
Counting to ten wasn’t going to be enough. I was actually grateful when Quentin stepped up next to me, scowling at her, and said, “We had to make sure we could catch Chelsea when we managed to find her. Unless you just wanted us to wave while she went teleporting by? Because we could do that, I guess.”
“Your parents aren’t going to thank me for what I’ve done to your manners,” I informed Quentin, not bothering to hide my amusement. Finally calm enough to turn back to Bridget, I said, “Look. We are doing the best we can. We are calling in every favor and every ally that stands even the slightest chance of helping us out here. But we’re not miracle workers.”
“Then what’s the point of being magical creatures?” asked Bridget, still glaring.
“We get a discount at Starbucks,” I said. “We’re going to find your daughter, Bridget. You need to start believing that, and you need to tell me exactly what she said when she called.”
“She said she was in Seattle.”
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