Ashes of Honor: An October Daye Novel

by Seanan McGuire

  Speaking of looking up…I crossed to the window, leaning onto my toes as I looked out on the moon-washed moor. I was definitely in Annwn, and I just as definitely wasn’t looking up: the waves of heather and broom that stretched out around the tower where I was imprisoned were way, way down. Far enough down, in fact, that I couldn’t even consider jumping a viable means of escape. If it had been only fifty feet, I would probably have broken the bones in both my legs, but I would have recovered. This was more like two hundred feet, and no matter how quickly I heal, a drop like that would kill me.

  When all else fails, try the direct route. I dropped back to the floor and walked to the door, a heavy oak monstrosity barred with magic-dampening rowan wood. This must be the humane dungeon. They didn’t want prisoners using magic to open the door, but they hadn’t resorted to barring it with iron. Thank Oberon for that. The last thing I needed to add to my day was a bad case of iron poisoning.

  The door was locked. That was no surprise; I would have been more surprised, and substantially more concerned, if it hadn’t been. I bent to peer through the keyhole, making sure there was nothing unexpected in there. Then I went back to the pile of bracken, selected a particularly green piece of woody stem, and set to work.

  My old mentor, Devin, fancied himself a cross between Fagin and Peter Pan—a thief and con man with an army of eternal children to do his bidding. Most of the lessons I learned while I was with him were the sort of things I’ve spent the years since then trying to forget. Some of them, on the other hand, have proved to be surprisingly useful. Like how to pick a lock with improvised tools when I couldn’t use magic to make the process any easier.

  It probably says something about my life that I’ve been in a position to use this particular lesson more than once. And I bet not even Devin imagined I’d one day be using his techniques to pick a tower lock in Annwn. That’s me. Always doing my best to surpass expectations.

  Something inside the lock clicked. I twisted my bit of bracken hard upward, and was rewarded with a second, louder click. Moving cautiously, in case there was some sort of secondary lock spell on the door that I hadn’t noticed before, I tried the latch.

  The door opened smoothly. The hinges didn’t even creak—probably, I realized as I straightened up, because they were made of hand-carved oak. This was a realm where humans had never been common. Given a choice between metal and wood, humans almost always choose metal, and fae almost always choose wood. That probably says something deep and profound about our two species. At the moment, I was just relieved to know I wasn’t going to need an oilcan if I wanted to move quietly through the building.

  I opened the door a little wider and peered into the hall. I didn’t see anyone. That didn’t necessarily mean anything; not with Riordan using Folletti for bodyguards. I breathed in, searching the air for signs of other fae. All I found was the smell of blood, and the unmistakable traces of Dóchas Sidhe. I already knew I was there. That meant that, for the moment, I was alone.

  Stepping back from the door, I gathered my magic—something that was easier than I expected, thanks to all the blood in the room—and spun a don’t-look-here over myself. It wouldn’t keep me safe forever, but it might be enough to keep me safe until I could find myself some backup. I shook the last clinging bits of magic off my hand before grabbing a few more pieces of bracken and tucking them behind my ear. There’s no telling what might turn out to be useful, and I was probably going to be picking a few more locks before I was finished.

  There was nothing else in the tower room for me. I wiped my hands on my jeans one last time, trying to get off a little bit more of the blood, and stepped out into the hall.

  I didn’t have any way of relocking my door, so I just pulled it as tightly closed as I could and hoped no one would come to check on me until I was safely away. Pulling the Chelsea-chaser out of my pocket, I held it close to my body to keep the light from possibly shining outside the boundaries of my spell, and started making my way cautiously down the hall.

  The irony of the situation was that nothing about it was new to me. I’d been a captive in Blind Michael’s lands, and while they weren’t as deep as Annwn—nothing we can access normally is as deep as Annwn—they were still disconnected from Earth and the Summerlands. And while I was there, I used the light of a magic candle created by the Luidaeg to find the children that he’d stolen.

  Back then, I’d been trying to deny I was a hero. These days, no matter how unhappy I may sometimes be about it, I know I’m a hero. Oddly, knowing that made it easier to walk down the hall, keeping my back to the stone wall and watching for Folletti. There was none of the old urge to run and tell them to get someone else to deal with things; this was mine to deal with. My friends were somewhere in this hall. I was going to find them, and together, we were going to find a lost little girl who deserved better from Faerie than she’d ever gotten.

  The Luidaeg’s charm flickered when I was halfway down the hall. Then it flared, turning not its customary red, but a dark, almost puzzled-seeming shade of purple. I paused. There was only one door nearby. It was plain oak, with no convenient little window to let me see what was on the other side. Hollywood castles always get the little windows.

  “Stupid Hollywood castles,” I muttered, tucking the charm back into my pocket. I pulled a piece of bracken from my hair and knelt, getting to work on the lock. This one was easier, maybe because I was getting warmed up, and maybe because I’d had a little more time for the feeling to come back into my hands. The lock clicked open, and I cautiously opened the door.

  This room was the mirror of the one where I’d been held: the same round stone walls, the same heap of fresh-cut broom and heather on the floor. Etienne was propped against the wall under the window, a blindfold tied across his eyes. I stepped into the room, tugging the door shut behind me.

  His chin came up. “Who’s there?” he demanded. “If you can’t fight me fairly, at least stop creeping around like cowards in the dark.”

  “Shh,” I said, crossing the distance between us before releasing my don’t-look-here. It wisped away into the smell of cut grass and copper. “Etienne, it’s me. Keep your voice down. I don’t know where Riordan’s Folletti are, and I’d rather not find out the painful way.”

  “October?” he said, lowering his voice to something just above a whisper. “Is that you?”

  “I just said it was, didn’t I?” I reached behind his head, untying his blindfold. He blinked at me as it fell away. I offered a small smile, adding wryly, “I don’t know whether to be relieved or insulted that they felt the need to blindfold you when they didn’t bother with me.”

  “They didn’t want me to see where I was being taken.”

  “I guess that’s more of an issue with a teleporter, huh?” I was trying to keep my voice light. It wasn’t the easiest thing I’d ever done. Etienne had clearly been beaten. One of his eyes was swollen, and there was a heavy bruise on the right side of his jaw. He’d arrived at Dreamer’s Glass on his own. Tybalt and Quentin…

  I set the thought aside. I would find them. For the moment, I needed to get Etienne loose. Having a teleporter with me would be more use than any amount of brooding.

  “I cannot travel if I cannot see,” he said.

  “Well, at least we’ve fixed that,” I said. “Hang on. I’m going to get you untied.”

  His wrists and ankles were tied the same way mine had been. Etienne had struggled against his bonds, but had stopped before he could really hurt himself. That made him smarter than me. It took several minutes before I could pick the knots holding his wrists loose. Etienne hissed with pain as the twine fell away. Livid red marks ringed his wrists where it had been.

  “These are friendly people,” I said, bending to begin work on his ankles. “Remind me to hit them a lot if I get the chance.”

  “I assure you, I am unlikely to forget.” Etienne rubbed his wrist with one hand, watching me work. Finally, awkwardly, he said, “October…”

  �
��We all got caught, Etienne. Not just you.”

  “I was the one foolish enough to go by myself. Perhaps if I had waited…”

  “Hindsight is always twenty-twenty.” I worked a thumbnail into the knot holding the twine in place. “Let’s just find Tybalt and Quentin. Then we can find Chelsea, kick Riordan’s arrogant ass all the way back to the Summerlands, and get the hell out of here. How does that sound?”

  “Excellent, if improbable.”

  “Improbable is sort of my specialty.” I peeled the twine away, sitting back on my knees. “All done. You’re free to go. Do you think you can stand?”

  “My daughter is in danger. I think I can do whatever is required of me.” Bold words aside, Etienne stumbled when he pulled himself up to his feet. I moved to catch him, and he waved me off, grimacing as he leaned against the wall. “I can walk unassisted.”

  “Are you sure about that?” I asked, standing.

  Etienne lowered his chin, dark eyes blazing. “Somewhere in this place that we should not be, my daughter is being held by a woman who is using her to no good ends. Yes, I am sure. I would be sure if doing it meant my death. This will not stand.”

  “Okay. Just trying to make sure you’re all right.” I pulled the Luidaeg’s charm out of my pocket. It was still glowing purple. The color intensified when I moved it closer to Etienne. “You’re Chelsea’s father, so this thing is picking up on your presence. We need to fix that if we want to use it to find her.”

  “How—”

  “Hang on.” I’d attuned the first charm by touching it to a place where Chelsea’s magic had been used, and I attuned the second charm by touching it to the first. Feeling only slightly foolish, I leaned forward and tapped the charm against Etienne’s shoulder.

  The purple flared, and turned back to the familiar neutral shade of frozen starlight.

  “It knows who you are now,” I said. “That means we can keep using it to look for Chelsea and not worry about you throwing it off.”

  Etienne eyed the charm. “Do you understand how it works?”

  “Nope,” I said, with more cheer than necessary. “I usually don’t know how magic works. I use it anyway. Are you feeling up to casting a don’t-look-here over the both of us? I lost a lot of blood getting out of my room, and I’m not sure how many of those I can cast.”

  That wasn’t strictly true: losing the blood slowed me down for a few minutes, but it didn’t seem to be doing anything to slow me down now. At the same time, if I was going to be the one picking every lock we came to, I couldn’t also be the one putting up and taking down the don’t-look-here spells. I would exhaust myself before we accomplished anything useful, and then I wouldn’t be able to do anything for anyone. Not Chelsea, not Quentin, and not Tybalt.

  Assuming Tybalt was even alive. Samson could never be King. He could still kill the man who held the throne.

  Etienne paused, apparently seeing the change in my expression. “October? Are you all right?”

  No. “I’m just worried about the others. Can you cast the spell or not?”

  “I believe so.” Etienne took a breath before raising his hand and sketching a quick series of motions in the air. The smell of limes and cedar smoke rose, and the spell settled down on my shoulders like a veil. Etienne lowered his hand. “That should hold.”

  “Good. Come on.” I turned to head back toward the door. Etienne followed, and I did my best to match my pace to his. Don’t-look-here spells are a form of illusion. This one would work best if we stayed close to one another. Besides, I didn’t trust him yet not to fall.

  His clothing hid most of the evidence of the beating he’d received at the hands of Riordan’s guards, but I could see the signs of it in the stiffness when he moved and the way he was favoring his left leg. I was just glad they’d satisfied themselves with blindfolding him, rather than putting his eyes out entirely. That probably meant Riordan thought he might be useful later and wanted him intact when later came. Maybe that was an upside to dealing with sane people. They’d kill you just as dead, but they understood how to conserve their resources until they didn’t need them anymore.

  Etienne’s pace was slow enough that we moved through the rest of the floor at about half-speed. The Luidaeg’s charm continued to glow a neutral white the whole time. Eventually, we came to a flight of stairs, spiraling both upward and downward from where we stood.

  I paused at the doorway to the stairs, and then motioned for Etienne to remain where he was. He nodded, stepping back. I went six steps up toward the next floor, breathed in, and retreated. I did the same with the floor beneath us. Then I returned to Etienne, stepping close as I murmured, “Definitely Folletti on the floor below us. None I can spot on the floor above, although that doesn’t mean they’re not there.”

  “Then we go up,” he murmured back. I nodded, and together, we began making our way up the stairs.

  Nothing stopped us as we climbed to the next landing, where another floor like the one we’d been kept on was waiting. Again, I motioned for Etienne to remain where he was while I stepped forward and checked for Folletti; again, if they were present, they weren’t close enough for me to detect them. I waved Etienne forward, and together, we made our way down the hall, looking for doors.

  What we found was an empty room above the one where I’d been kept, and a locked one above where Etienne had been. I pulled a piece of bracken from my hair and dropped to my knees, getting to work. This lock went even faster than the prior two. Practice was definitely making perfect. I tucked the half-bent piece of bracken back behind my ear, and pushed the door open gingerly.

  Then I yelped, only remembering to swallow the sound at the last moment, and ran to where Tybalt lay motionless on his side in the heaped-up brush. He’d been beaten as badly as Etienne, if not worse; he was stripped to his trousers, barefoot and shirtless, as if to guarantee that he had no hidden weapons. His wrists and ankles were bound. Our captors must have seen him as more of a risk, because unlike us, they hadn’t used twine.

  Tybalt’s wrists and ankles were bound with iron.

  I dropped to my knees next to him, the bracken barely cushioning my fall, and grabbed his shoulder, trying to ignore the way the heat off the iron baked into my skin. “Tybalt? Tybalt, can you hear me?”

  He didn’t respond. That didn’t strike me as a good sign.

  Iron isn’t just a way of hurting the fae: it’s a way of torturing us, distorting reality and cutting off access to the magic that normally permeates our days. The stink of it rose from him, iron death and poisoned blood. I shuddered, pulling away enough to shove my hands into the bracken and search for something sturdier than my little makeshift lock picks. I didn’t even hear Etienne’s approach until he spoke from behind me, saying, “We shouldn’t linger. The iron—”

  “Go without me if you can’t handle it,” I said, yanking a piece of broom from the pile. I stripped the leaves and smaller twigs from it with quick, businesslike motions, forcing my hands to stay steady. “I can’t leave him here.”

  “October—”

  “I can’t!” We both froze as we realized I’d yelled. I turned to look over my shoulder at Etienne, who was staring at me, wide-eyed and stunned.

  Then he nodded stiffly. “I understand,” he said, and turned away. My heart sank a little, even though I’d been half expecting it. He was looking for his daughter, after all, and Tybalt, while an ally, had never been a friend of his.

  Etienne closed the door, sealing us inside the room with Tybalt, and the iron.

  “Work quickly, if you would be so kind,” he said. “I don’t know how long it will remain safe for us to be here.”

  “Watch the door,” I said. Gritting my teeth against what was about to come, I bent over Tybalt, grasping his wrist just below the iron cuff, and touched the twig of broom to the lock.

  Most of the dangers in Faerie are worse for changelings than they are for purebloods. Changelings are the ones with less magic, less physical resilience, and less to
protect them from whatever’s decided to eat them for lunch. The one time this really falls down is when iron gets involved. Iron doesn’t hurt humans, and so the more human a changeling is, the less it hurts them. There was a time when I could handle iron with relative ease, even going so far as to carry an iron knife on a regular basis. That time has passed. I’m a lot less human than I used to be.

  When my fingers brushed the cuff around Tybalt’s wrist, the metal burned and froze at the same time, an impossible contradiction of sensations that my nerves had no way of processing. Since they couldn’t translate it into anything else, they turned it into searing pain, bad enough that I bit down on my lip until I tasted blood.

  That helped steady me, and I forced my hands to keep moving despite the pain, twisting the sprig of broom inside the lock. I was about to let go and step back to recover when something deep in the mechanism clicked over, and the first cuff snapped open. I repeated the process with the second. When the lock released I yelped, more out of shock than anything else, and jerked away, letting the cuffs fall to the floor. They landed in the bracken with a soft thump, and lay there, gleaming dully in the thin light. My temporary lock pick stuck out of the open keyhole. I left it there.

  “October…”

  “I’m almost there, Etienne.” My fingertips were charred, and it was harder to bend my fingers than it should have been. I shook my hands, trying to get some of the feeling back, before I started digging through the bracken again, looking for a fresh lock pick.

  Tybalt groaned. I froze.

  “Tybalt?”

  The sound wasn’t repeated. I swallowed, hard, and dug down into the brush until I found a sprig of broom that suited my needs. Then I scooted down, bending to begin fiddling with the locks holding his ankles together.

  Some pains get better with exposure, familiarity breeding a sort of physical contempt. The pain of flesh touching iron isn’t one of them. You’ll eventually go numb from all the poison being pumped into your system, but that isn’t the same thing. Gripping the cuffs on Tybalt’s ankles was just as bad as gripping the cuffs on his wrists had been. At least this time I knew that I’d eventually be able to get the locks open. I bit my lip harder still, and somehow got the first of the ankle cuffs unlocked. I kept working.