There was a pause before Dianda said suspiciously, “Prove it.”
I moved back in front of her cell’s hatch. She was standing at the center of the room in bipedal form, a brick in one hand, glaring. Her tunic was ripped and stained with blood and rust. She wasn’t wearing any pants, or shoes.
She scowled when she saw my face. “You’re not October,” she snarled, and pulled back her arm, preparing to fling the second brick.
“Whoa, whoa, hold up!” I said. “I am October, I just had a little accident with a goblin fruit pie and sort of accidentally turned myself mostly human.” The sheer ridiculousness of that statement hit me as soon as it had left my mouth. I winced. “Okay, let me try again . . .”
“There’s no need. No one else would say something that dumb and actually mean it.” Dianda lowered the brick. “How did you get here?” She seemed to be trying to look past me to the hall. The reason was revealed when she asked, “How many guards did you bring?”
“I brought a force of one, and he’s in trouble. I need you to help me find the treasury so I can fix myself, because I can’t fix him until I do that.” I drew my iron knife. The hilt was heavy and familiar in my hand. “Hold tight. I’m going to get you out of here.”
“Hurry.” Dianda wrapped her arms a little tighter around herself. “The air in here burns.”
“I know.” I dropped to one knee, wincing, and studied the lock. The fact that Dianda was still standing, and still strong enough not to revert to her natural form, was sort of awe-inspiring. Iron saps strength, and the more fae someone is, the faster iron will start affecting them. Dianda was pureblooded. She should have been writhing in agony. Instead, she was just looking for something she could hit.
I knew I liked her for a reason.
The lock was surprisingly easy to pick, maybe because there’d never been much of a reason to make it very secure. The Queen’s dungeon was hard to access, and anyone fae enough to know it existed was unlikely to ever make it that far. I twisted my knife to the side and the tumbler popped, allowing me to unlatch the door.
“All right; I’m opening the do—” Dianda burst out of the room, shoving past me, and stopped at the middle of the hallway, breathing so hard she looked like she’d just finished a marathon. I caught myself against the wall. “—or now,” I finished. “You okay?”
“My blood is full of stinging jellies and I want to hurt someone,” she snarled. “So it’s to be treason now, is it?”
“No, it’s not,” I said. “Arden just announced her regency. Unless she fails, this Queen has no right to hold you.”
Dianda blinked, and then slowly smiled. “Wonderful. Now about those people I wanted to hurt . . .”
“We can’t.” I shook my head, resheathing my knife. “We have something else to do.”
“What?” Dianda’s eyebrows arched upward in surprise. “I’m sorry. You get to give me orders now? Did I miss the annexation of the Undersea?”
“No,” I said. “But Tybalt is dying, and we need to find the treasury if there’s going to be any chance of saving him. I can’t do it on my own. I need your help.”
“A knight of the land Courts asking a Duchess of the Undersea to save a King of Cats,” said Dianda, almost thoughtfully. “You live your life in a stew of myths, don’t you?”
I glared. “This is no time to stand here quipping. Will you help me, or am I leaving you to find your own way out of here?”
“Of course I’ll help you.” Her bravado slipped, revealing the wounded, weary woman behind her mask. “Love should always be saved—and I owe the bitch who holds this knowe more pain than I can properly describe. We may as well begin with a little robbery.”
“Great.” I turned in a circle, finally pointing toward the nearest set of stairs. “That way. That’ll get us back to ground-level.”
“Where is the treasury from there?”
“I . . .” I stopped, shoulders sagging. “I don’t know.”
“Well, then. It’s a good thing you have me.” Dianda started walking. I moved to pace her. She was moving slowly enough that I could, and I didn’t get the impression that it was due to courtesy; she was a mermaid who’d been forced to remain in a mostly-human shape for hours. She couldn’t have walked faster if she’d wanted to.
Since for the moment, we only needed to climb stairs, I didn’t ask what she’d meant: I just focused on putting one foot in front of the other. Midway up, I paused to pop another of Walther’s blood gems into my mouth. It barely took the edge off my hunger. That didn’t matter, because I wouldn’t need them much longer.
One way or another, I wouldn’t need them much longer.
Dianda reached the door at the top of the stairs first, and paused, leaning in until her ear was almost brushing against the wood. She held up two fingers. I nodded. Then, since I was the one more equipped to touch the iron laced through the door itself, I braced my shoulder against it and shoved it open.
I had time to see the startled look on the first guard’s face before Dianda hit him in the throat, the sort of sucker punch that made it impossible for him to do anything but fall down. I grabbed his spear as he fell, whipping around and swinging it toward the other side of the door. Momentum turned me to face the second guard just as the haft of the spear hit her across the belly. The air rushed out of her as a loud grunt. Dianda promptly punched her three times in the face, and she went down beside her partner.
The door to the dungeons swung shut with a disturbingly final-sounding bang. Tybalt was down there, alone with the night-haunts. We had to hurry.
“Amateurs,” scoffed Dianda, and crouched to begin searching the fallen guards. “I’ve got a short sword here.”
“I’ll keep the spear,” I said.
“Suit yourself.” Dianda straightened, belting the guard’s sword around her waist as she held up a key ring. “Do you know how to get to the main receiving room?”
“That way.” I pointed.
“Good. Which way is the armory?”
I pointed again, in the opposite direction.
“Even better.” Dianda started toward the armory, bare feet slapping against the stone floor. “The treasury is likely to be near the place where they keep the weapons, but still reasonably close to where Court is held. That makes it accessible but defensible, and means the dungeon is nice and easy to get to if someone tries to rob you.”
“Logic in knowe-building. All right.” I followed, watching for signs of attack. The halls were quiet around us, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Even after years of dealing with her, I didn’t have any idea how big the Queen’s Court actually was. It could have been huge, staffed on a scale with the knowe she claimed. It could also have been tiny. She usually kept visitors confined to the main hall, and that meant she could have been doing everything with no more than twenty people.
“So Arden’s claim is declared, huh? Good. I’ve been looking forward to a brawl.” Dianda’s tone was casual, but her cheeks were flushed with spots of hectic red. “How’s Dean?”
“He and Patrick are both fine,” I said. “The Queen only arrested you.”
“Thank Oberon for that.” Dianda kept walking. “What are we doing, exactly?”
“We’re breaking into the Queen’s treasury so I can find the hope chest I gave her when Evening died,” I said. “That’ll let me change my blood back to normal, so I can save Tybalt.”
“I have no idea what any of that means, but it all sounds very epic and important, so I’m sure it’ll work.” Dianda wiped her forehead with the back of one hand. “And then I’m going to kick that white-haired usurper’s ass from here to Atlantis.”
“Just hold on to that,” I said, watching her anxiously. She was showing the classic symptoms of iron poisoning. Walther could treat that, but only if I could get her to him—and if she keeled over, I wasn’t going to be getting her anywhere.
Footsteps up ahead cut off any further conversation. Two more of the Queen’s guards came around t
he corner, stopping when they saw us. I threw my spear at the guard on the left. It bounced harmlessly off his chest, but it was a distraction. It bought us a few seconds. I drew my knives and Dianda drew her sword. Then, with no more civility than that, we charged.
The first guard never got a chance to do anything. Dianda’s swing caught him in the side of the head, the pommel of her sword impacting hard against bone. The second guard was faster. I slashed at him and he dodged, before swinging his own sword at my side. It was a good hit, the kind of thing Sylvester had tried—and failed—to teach me to avoid before I learned to depend on my own ability to recover from any nonmortal injury. The blade cut deep before it was withdrawn, and the smell of blood flooded my nostrils.
The guard pulled back for another swing. I summoned every bit of training I’d ever had, using it to dodge the hit that would have ended the fight for good, and pressed my iron knife against his throat. He froze.
“Drop the sword,” I said. It clattered to the hallway floor. “Which way to the treasury?”
“I will not betray—” he began.
“She’s not your Queen,” I snarled. “She’s a fake, and the real Queen is finally here. You’re betraying nothing, and you’re saving yourself from death by iron. Oberon’s Law doesn’t bind me. I’m too human for that, and it’s your beloved pretender’s fault. Now. Which way is the treasury?”
Something in my eyes must have told him I was serious. He raised one shaking hand, pointing back the way he’d come. I nodded.
“How many men are guarding the doors?”
“Two,” he whispered.
“Good answer.” I let go as Dianda hit him in the back of the head, sending him crumpling to the floor. I nudged his body with a toe. He didn’t move. “Did you just kill him?”
“No, but he’ll wish I had when he wakes up.” Dianda looked at me, and her eyes widened. “Toby, you’re bleeding.”
“I know. I haven’t felt this good in days.” I touched my side and winced, resolutely not looking at the damage. “It won’t last. We’d better hurry.” I didn’t want to stop the bleeding—the smell was helping, and as long as I was bleeding, I didn’t have to acknowledge how bad the wound actually was. That didn’t mean I could bleed forever without consequences.
Eyes still wide, Dianda nodded. “All right. Come on.”
We abandoned pretensions of stealth as we hurried down the hall. We were leaving four fallen guards and a blood trail behind us. All we had on our side was speed, and so we were using it as best we could. Which . . . wasn’t all that good, considering our respective situations. Maybe it shouldn’t have been a surprise when we turned another corner and found six guards standing in front of a pair of double doors, obviously waiting for us.
“Aw, they want to win,” said Dianda, and broke into a run, launching herself at the startled guards at the last minute. Her body seemed to glitter in midair as her legs elongated into a muscular, scale-covered tail, and she slammed into the first three men like a battering ram, her momentum and increased weight bringing them all crashing to the ground. Still on top of the first three men, she slammed her tail into a fourth, sending him into the nearby wall.
“Get in here!” she roared.
I got.
Playing nice was no longer an option: I was weak from blood loss and withdrawal, and I wasn’t sure Dianda would be able to shift back into her bipedal form, which meant she might be a fish out of water for the rest of the fight. I kneed one guard solidly in the nuts. He crumpled, and I hit him on the back of the neck for good measure. Dianda, meanwhile, was simply hitting her four with her tail over and over again, looking entirely too gleeful about the situation.
“She really did just want something to hit,” I muttered, turning toward the final guard. She was clutching her spear with both hands, a terrified expression on her face. I guess she didn’t see rampaging mermaids and blood-drenched hoodlums every day. “Hi,” I said. “You look like a nice girl. Run away now, nice girl, and we’ll pretend we didn’t see you go.”
I didn’t have to tell her twice. She whirled and ran, leaving her spear to clatter to the floor. A wave of dizzy grayness washed over me. I slumped against the wall, putting a hand over the wound at my side. “Yeah,” I said faintly. “You better run.”
“October?” Dianda’s voice was very far away. “Are you all right?”
“No.” I pushed myself away from the wall and moved to try the treasury door. It was locked. The thought of trying to pick it made me tired. “I need those keys you grabbed before.”
She tossed me the key ring. It clattered to the floor at my feet, and it took me three tries to pick it up with my sticky, trembling fingers. The keyhole was large enough that I was able to eliminate half the keys before I even started testing them against the lock. The first three wouldn’t turn. The fourth turned slightly, and then stopped, refusing to go any further.
The fifth key opened the lock.
My shoulders slumped in relief as I pushed the door open, letting the keys fall into the growing puddle of blood at my feet. Dianda was saying something, but I couldn’t stop to listen. She would get up on her own. Or she wouldn’t, and we’d deal with that when I knew whether or not this was the end of the line. My feet left bloody prints as I walked into the room.
Treasure—both recognizable and strange—was piled up on all sides. Bars of gold and platinum shared space with sacks of beans and jars of feathers. I shuffled forward, trying to spot the hope chest somewhere in the mess. The smell of blood was overwhelming everything.
Blood. I fumbled the baggie full of the Luidaeg’s blood out of my pocket and managed to break the seal, spilling blood lozenges in all directions. I let them fall, focusing on the two that I had left in my hand. She knew the hope chests. They knew her.
Please, let this work without killing me, I thought, and put the lozenges into my mouth.
The kick of her blood slamming into me was even harder this time, maybe because I’d taken twice as much. It wanted to own me, and I couldn’t let it, or I would be lost. I forced the forming memories aside, trying to focus the energy the blood was pumping through me. “Hope chest,” I whispered. “Hope chest, hope chest . . .”
And there it was, a simple wooden box on a plain pedestal that I could suddenly recognize. I stumbled toward it, flashes of the Luidaeg’s memories washing over me with every step. The Luidaeg and a blonde woman, kissing on a beach at sunset. The Luidaeg in a bog, watching smoke curl up against the stars, holding a little boy who had Blind Michael’s eyes. The Luidaeg in the arms of a man with hair the color of twilight, blackness shot through with glints of gold and red and rose.
Then my hands touched the wood, my blood staining the delicate carvings, and I fell to the floor with the hope chest cradled in my arms, and nothing really mattered anymore. I didn’t feel myself hit the floor.
I didn’t feel anything.
TWENTY-FIVE
I OPENED MY EYES and found myself staring at the ceiling of my old apartment. “Okay,” I muttered, sitting up and looking down at myself. I was in my long black Bourbon Room T-shirt, and I was lying on my four-poster bed from Mother’s tower. The room was familiar and wrong at the same time, mixing aspects of my mortal and fae lives with maddened abandon. The shelves groaned with battered paperbacks and random knickknacks alongside magic swords and jars full of fireflies. One of the windows looked out on the Summerlands, while the other showed a midday parking lot.
“I hate symbolism,” I said, sliding out of the bed. At least nothing hurt. My wounds were gone, washed away by whatever process I’d started by touching the hope chest.
I had touched it, hadn’t I? I couldn’t quite remember whether I’d reached it in time. I walked toward the door, fighting the urge to touch my ears and see where my blood was balanced. This place seemed designed to tell me soon enough, and there was no point in rushing the inevitable.
Then I opened the door, and found myself looking at . . . myself. Mostly. The woman in the
doorway was clearly a changeling, a little less fae than I had been at the start of the week, a lot less human than I’d been when I broke into the treasury. She was wearing my leather jacket, and had a knife in either hand. Her fingers were wrapped around the blades, hiding them, and their hilts were identical.
“Hi,” she said, without preamble. “I’m you.”
“I got that,” I said, frowning. “What’s going on? Am I going to have some kind of messed-up vision every time I need to change my blood?”
“Maybe,” she said. “It’s not like this is ground that’s been walked before. Most blood magic comes with visions of a sort, so you could call this more of the same. How do you feel?”
“Weak.”
“That’s because you’re bleeding to death.” She held the knives out toward me, hilt first. “Pick one.”
I blinked. “That’s it? That’s the wisdom of this particular stupid vision? ‘Pick one’?”
“The hope chest responds to intent, and right now, you don’t have any; you’re too far gone,” she said, still holding the knives out. “You could actually say that this moment, right here, is both you fighting your own blood, and you fighting the hope chest. Part of you wants to be human. Let the goblin fruit carry you away on a tide of sweet, sweet dreams that leave you dead. Part of you wants to be fae. Stop making this choice, stop taking this risk. So pick a knife. If you get the silver, you’re fae. If you get the iron, you’re human. Either way, you’ll have made a decision—you’ll have given the hope chest the intent it needs to work.”
“Are you messing with me?”
She shook her head. “No. I’m offering you a fifty-fifty chance at survival. And that’s better than you’ll have if you don’t pick a knife soon. There’s only so much blood in your body, and you’re not regenerating. Come on. Choose while there’s still time for it to matter.”
The knives were identical, and she was holding them the same distance from her body. Nothing about her position hinted at which one I should take.
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