Chimes at Midnight

by Seanan McGuire

  Everyone stared at me like I had lost my mind. Everyone but Quentin, who just nodded, looking thoughtful.

  “In the Mists,” said Arden, without varying her expression at all.

  I smirked.

  “Are you insane?” asked May.

  “She’s insane,” said Danny.

  “The Queen will have to attack immediately or risk granting legitimacy to the challenge,” said Quentin. “She won’t even have to wait three days. That kind of treason warrants immediate response, if there’s any chance that people will take it seriously.”

  I nodded. “Exactly. And reopening the lost knowe of King Gilad is the sort of thing people are going to take pretty damn seriously.”

  “What good does it do me to get myself killed?” asked Arden. “I don’t have an army!”

  “You have the Undersea. You’ll have as many men as Sylvester can provide.”

  “How is this helping me get my brother back?”

  “I’ve been in the Queen’s dungeons before.” I looked to Tybalt. “Iron isn’t really a problem for me right now. So a little jailbreak shouldn’t be that big a deal.”

  He blinked as the full scope of what I was asking hit him. “You want to break into the Queen’s knowe. October. Have you lost your mind?”

  “You know it’s a good plan when it gets everyone to ask if I’m crazy,” I said amiably. “No, I have not lost my mind. The Queen will have to answer Arden’s challenge with as much force as she can muster, and she’s not going to be expecting anyone to be dishonorable enough to make a sneak attack.”

  “There’s nothing dishonorable about taking back someone who shouldn’t have been taken in the first place,” snapped Arden.

  “That’s my opinion, too.”

  “Uh, not to sound dense here, but how does this fix anythin’?” asked Danny. “Sure, you get the missing dude back, but Arden here is still under attack by Queen Crazy-cakes and her big-ass army, and we’re all gettin’ banished or killed. I’m not really seeing this as a win.”

  “We don’t have to win. We just have to hold off her forces long enough to contact a higher authority. Getting Nolan out of her knowe is mostly to make sure she won’t do anything vindictive and stupid when she realizes that the tide has turned against her.” I looked toward Quentin. He met my eyes levelly. “She’s held this throne because she was unchallenged, and because no one higher up than she was ever had the excuse to say, ‘No, that is not yours.’”

  “Arden’s claim is good, and supported by the Library,” said Quentin. “I’m sure King Sollys will hear your petition.”

  “Swell. Do you think you could relay that to him, then, preferably before the Queen of the Mists decides to kill us all?”

  Quentin smiled crookedly, while May and Tybalt looked at me in bewilderment. “I can do that.”

  “Good. Because you’re going to be staying here.”

  His eyes widened. “What?”

  “You heard me. Someone needs to stay here and make sure the Queen doesn’t send people to attack the house. Jazz is asleep. I’d rather she not be ambushed. And we’re going to need May to put on some of my clothes, cast an illusion to turn her hair brown, and go with Arden. We need them visibly standing together, both to draw fire—”

  “Gee, thanks,” said May.

  “—and because people will assume that May is me.” I looked around the little group. “This is a risky plan. It’s complicated and it’s convoluted and it’s entirely outside of my primary skill set. And it’s the only one I have that stands a chance of working. If any of you have something better, now would be the time to bring it up.”

  No one said anything.

  I nodded. “Okay. If any of you doesn’t want to be a part of this, now would be the time to leave.”

  “Pass,” said May.

  “No way,” said Danny.

  “I’d love to, but I’m the only one that offer doesn’t apply to,” said Arden.

  Tybalt didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to.

  “I want to make a change,” said Quentin.

  I raised an eyebrow. “What’s that?”

  “Instead of staying here—and I mean, I get why you want me to stay here; somebody has to stay with Jazz, and you probably want me to be as far away from actually breaking the law as possible right now—why don’t Jazz and I go to the Library of Stars and hole up there? I can call Raj. He can take us, and we won’t ever have to go outside.” Quentin shrugged. “It won’t stop the Queen if she decides she wants to burn the house down, but we couldn’t stop her if we were here. I’m not Elliot. I can’t create big waves just because I want them.”

  “And the Library is neutral ground,” I said thoughtfully. “Even if the Queen wants to cause problems for you there, she can’t. All Mags has to do is refuse to let her into the stacks. Okay. We’ll go with that. And, uh, bring donuts or something to apologize to Mags for my exploiting my Library pass.”

  “Will do,” said Quentin.

  May looked relieved. “I guess I can take a few headshots for the cause if Jazz will be safely out of the line of fire.”

  Arden looked confused. I glanced at her, explaining, “May is literally indestructible. As near as we can tell, she can’t die now that she’s no longer connected to me.”

  “Oh,” said Arden.

  It was time for the part that wasn’t going to go over so well. I turned to Tybalt, and took a deep breath. “Tybalt . . .”

  “Ah.” His eyes narrowed. “This is where you once again ask me to leave you for someone else to defend, and trust that I will do it simply because you claim that it is necessary. Really, October. I thought this time, perhaps, your endless assurances that you weren’t going to send me away might last a little longer.”

  “I’m not sending you away. I want us to end up in the same place, because I need you to go break Nolan out with me. I just need you to do something else, first.” I tucked my hair back behind one ear, trying to ignore the snarling from my stomach. “I need you to go and ask the cats for help.”

  He blinked. “You what? October, the Court of Cats cannot fight—”

  “No, they can’t. This is a matter of succession for the Divided Courts, and it would be completely inappropriate for the Court of Cats to get involved. But if they happened to be hanging out in Muir Woods before hostilities were formally declared, and accidentally served as an early warning system . . .”

  Tybalt blinked, and then smiled, although his pupils remained hairline-thin. “You have gotten trickier. It suits you. I am not happy about this request, but I can see the wisdom in it, much as I might wish not to. I will ask them.”

  “And since you’re the King of Cats, that means they’ll do it, right?”

  He snorted. “So long in my company, and yet you still know so little of the feline mind. Some will cooperate. Others will find better things to do with their time.”

  “Fair enough.” Even partial cooperation would give us the manpower we needed to make this work out. Of course, there was one other stumbling block to be overcome . . . “Someone needs to explain what’s going on to Sylvester.”

  Now Tybalt’s eyes widened. “You cannot be serious.”

  “I am.” I could have called. Sylvester would have listened. But I didn’t want them fighting any longer than was absolutely necessary—and more, sending Tybalt would impress on Sylvester just how important this really was.

  “He kept me from you.”

  “And now he can pay back a little of the debt he incurred to me in doing that. He can come and fight beside us. Please.”

  Tybalt simply stared at me for a long moment. Then he stepped closer. “You were less trouble before I told you that I loved you.” This said, he bowed his head, and kissed me, long and slow and sweet. Despite the fact that we were surrounded by people, I kissed him back.

  When he pulled away, he sighed. “Where shall I meet you?”

  “Come to Muir Woods,” I said. “I’m going to go there with Arden and the
others to get the knowe open. Once that’s done, it’ll be time for you and me to hit the Queen’s dungeons.”

  “Ah,” he said. “The simple pleasures.” He turned to Arden, offering another shallow bow. “Highness,” he said. “May you have the best of luck in claiming the throne you once refused. I know it is a difficult choice to make. I hope you will have as many joys in your place as I have had in mine.” He pivoted on his heel, walking out of the dining room.

  I turned back to the others, pulling my jacket a little tighter as I said, “All right, then: we know what we’re doing, we know where we’re going, and we know this isn’t going to be much fun. I’m going to call Goldengreen before we leave here. May, go wake Jazz. Quentin, go call Raj. Arden, eat a sandwich. You’re going to need it. Danny . . .”

  “I know how to get to Muir Woods,” he rumbled, folding his arms. “I’m drivin’.”

  I smiled a little. “Yeah, you’re driving.” May and Quentin had already vanished into other parts of the house, leaving me and Danny alone with Arden. I turned to her. “You okay?”

  “I can’t decide whether you’re a genius, an idiot, or one of those people who’s only happy when she’s making everything up as she goes along,” said Arden. She paused before adding, “And I’m starting to believe we can pull this off. It’s . . . a little bit weird.”

  “Welcome to life with Tobes,” said Danny, clapping her on the back.

  Arden stumbled forward a few feet before getting her balance. “She hasn’t killed the rest of you yet, so I guess that’s something,” she said. She looked at me. “Can we swing by the bookstore and pick up Madden? If we’re going to need all hands on deck for this, I want him with me. He’s one of the best men I know, and I’m not leaving him out.”

  “Absolutely,” I said. “When it comes to committing treason, the more the merrier.” I pulled my phone out of my pocket. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go call Goldengreen, and then we can leave.”

  “We’ll be here,” said Danny.

  I made it into the kitchen—and even managed to close the kitchen door—before my stomach clenched so tight that I could no longer stay upright. I grabbed the edge of the counter and hung there, suspended by my white-knuckled fingers, while I waited for the pain to fade.

  It seemed to take forever. It could have taken seconds. It was hard to tell. The pain was bad enough to twist my perception of time. I eventually hauled myself back to my feet, shaking, and wiped the sweat from my forehead. I could hear Arden and Danny talking quietly in the dining room. I couldn’t have been incapacitated for too long; they’d have noticed my absence, and come looking for me.

  I popped three more of Walther’s blood gems into my mouth as I dialed the number for Goldengreen, slumping against the counter in the process. The bag was almost empty. This had to end soon. One way or another, it had to end soon.

  I just hoped and prayed that it was going to end with everyone still standing.

  But I no longer quite believed that was possible.

  TWENTY-TWO

  DRIVING AWAY FROM THE HOUSE and leaving Quentin and Jazz behind was one of the hardest things I’d done all week. I sat in the backseat with May, twisting around in my seat so that she could apply Neosporin and strips of gauze to my scraped-up palms. Her fingers were trembling, and she kept stealing glances through the rear window, watching as our house receded into the dark. I felt a pang of guilt. As hard as it was for me to leave my squire behind, leaving her girlfriend had to be even harder for her.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” I said.

  “Hmm?” May’s attention focused on me. For a moment, it was like she wasn’t even seeing me; she was still looking back, watching one more life fade into the distance. Then she shook her head, mustering a smile, and said, “I’m glad you asked me to be. I’ve been feeling sort of left out lately.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I mean, I’m your death omen. I don’t exactly have the right to demand to be a part of your life.” We pulled up in front of Borderlands, visible now that Arden was with us. She hopped out, trotting toward the darkened storefront. May tracked Arden’s movements, her smile fading. “She really does look just like her father. It’s weird. I never thought I’d see those eyes again.”

  If we survived this, May could tell Arden what she remembered about King Gilad; Arden was going to find out where Fetches came from eventually, if she didn’t already know. It occurred to me that I didn’t have any idea what she did or didn’t know about Faerie. She’d been young when she went into her self-imposed exile, and her education seemed to have been centered on keeping herself and her younger brother safe. How much time would that have left for learning how everything else in our world worked? We might be putting a completely unprepared woman in charge of one of the largest regional Kingdoms in the Westlands . . . and to be entirely honest, I didn’t care. Ignorant or not, Arden was smart; she could learn. And anything would be an improvement over the Queen we were living under.

  “Did you know him?” I asked.

  “Yeah.” May sunk down in her seat. “I wasn’t him, or anything—that would be too weird—but I was one of his servants, or I remember being one of his servants, a little. She’s patchy. Too many other memories overwrote hers. But I remember seeing Arden in the halls. She was always so serious. She and her brother haunted the knowe like little ghosts. They were so sad, and Gilad would never talk to them when he knew anyone else was around.”

  “But that didn’t always include the servants,” I guessed.

  May shook her head. “No. He was a good man, but he was still a King, and Kings sometimes forget that servants are people. We knew who she was, and we all kept his secret, because we understood why it was important.”

  The cab door opened, and Arden slid into the backseat, forcing May to move into the middle. “The secret is out now,” she said. We looked at her guiltily before May turned to resume bandaging my hands, trying to act like she’d been doing that all along.

  “Arden—” I began.

  “I heard enough,” she said, cutting me off. “I’m not going to ask what it all meant, because this isn’t the time. But once we’re finished taking back my Kingdom, you’re going to explain everything to me. Do you understand? Everything.”

  “I hope you have a lot of time to kill,” said May.

  I offered Arden a sheepish smile. “Sorry. Things get chaotic around me sometimes.”

  “You don’t say.”

  The front passenger door opened. Madden flung himself into the seat, beaming. “Hi!”

  “Hi, Madden,” May and I chorused dutifully.

  He turned a hopeful expression on Danny. “Can I . . . ?” he asked.

  Danny chuckled. “Sure thing,” he said, and started the cab. “Just don’t jump out the window while we’re moving, okay?”

  “Okay!” said Madden, and shimmered, replaced by a large white dog with red-furred ears. His eyes were surrounded by matching circles, giving him an almost panda-like quality. Danny hit a button. Madden’s window rolled down, and he stuck his head outside.

  “Dogs are weird,” I said.

  “Says the woman who voluntarily travels with a cat,” said Arden, turning back to me. “Will all those people you named before really come to help us?”

  “I know the Undersea will; they’re going to want Dianda back, and this is a way to accomplish that without actually going to war this week. Not that they’d be opposed to a good war, but that’s something I’d rather avoid. Shadowed Hills . . .” I paused, trying to find the words for my complicated relationship with Sylvester Torquill. I settled for saying, “My liege holds Shadowed Hills, and he’s never failed to come to my aid when I truly needed him. I absolutely believe he’ll be there for me now. And he likes the current Queen about as much as I do.”

  “An’ Toby hates her,” said Danny.

  May sighed. “Danny. Don’t explain the joke.”

  “Sorry.” He turned off Valencia, head
ing for the freeway. “Muir Woods is about an hour away.”

  “That gives Tybalt time to notify the cats and get to Shadowed Hills so Sylvester can start mobilizing the troops,” I said. Muir Woods was close to the ocean, with a beach technically inside the boundaries of the park. I was assuming the Undersea would come largely via the water, which meant they never had to set foot, fin, or tentacle on land that belonged to the Queen. Sylvester could get his people there, and Marcia and the others from Goldengreen who couldn’t swim but didn’t want to stay there could take their cars. We were going to be on time.

  Too many of my allies were scattered, unprotected, around the Bay Area: I knew that, even as I knew that there was no way to call them all to safety, and no safety to call them to if we tried. Walther would be better off on campus, far away from fights of succession. Mitch, Stacy, and the kids would be safer at home. April O’Leary couldn’t move without the necessary hardware, and Li Qin Zhou was just as likely to kill me with her luck as she was to save me. The Luidaeg might have been able to help us . . . but then again, she might not. Rayseline Torquill had proven that the last time the Luidaeg tried to get involved in person. She couldn’t raise a hand against any descendant of Titania, and that included at least half the Queen’s guards.

  So no. This wasn’t everyone I could have called, but in this instance at least, it was everyone I should have called. My stomach rumbled. I stuck one of my freshly-bandaged hands into my pocket and pulled out the baggie of blood gems from Walther, trying not to think about how few were left.

  May followed my gaze to the baggie, and said, “I have a suggestion, but you’re not going to like it.”

  “Those words are right so much of the time that it makes my teeth itch just hearing them.” I looked away from the too-tempting chunks of frozen plasma and met the pale gray eyes of my Fetch. It occurred to me that my eyes were darker than hers for the first time. What a funny world we lived in. “What is it?”

  “Goblin fruit isn’t hard to find right now. Maybe if you had a little . . .”

  “May!” I stared at her. “I can’t believe you’d even suggest that.”