Ashes of Honor

And somehow you managed to never check closely enough to notice that she had a kid with pointed ears? I thought, before inwardly slapping myself. We don’t see the things we don’t want to see, and mothers are nothing if not inventive when it comes to hiding the truth about their children. Look at my mother. She managed to hide the truth of my race from practically everyone for more than fifty years, raising me as Daoine Sidhe when nothing could make me anything but Dóchas Sidhe—a direct descendant of Oberon, and a natural magnet for trouble. If Mom could pull off something like that with half of Faerie looking over her shoulder, it wasn’t hard to believe that Bridget could find a way to hide a changeling girl no one was looking for to begin with. It was harder to believe we were ever going to see that girl alive again.

“Wait—you said you watched Bridget ‘on campus.’ Does that mean she’s still at UC Berkeley?”

“Well, yes,” said Etienne. “I believe she’s currently the head of their Folklore Department.”

“Why am I not surprised to learn that Berkeley has a Folklore Department?” I picked up the paper where he’d written Bridget and Chelsea’s address. I glanced at it to be sure that I could read his handwriting, which was perfect enough to border on calligraphy, before folding it in half and tucking it into the pocket of my jeans. “Do you remember Walther?”

“Your friend the alchemist?” Etienne frowned. “Of course I remember him. He helped save the Duchess Torquill’s life. We owe him a debt of gratitude.”

Trust Etienne to see things in terms of obligations. “Walther teaches chemistry at UC Berkeley. I bet he’d be willing to check on Bridget if I asked. He might be able to get some pictures of Chelsea from her.” Which would neatly avoid the possibility of my getting arrested for breaking and entering on a high school campus. “Plus he can sound out her emotional state. She may have been able to hide a changeling from us for sixteen years, but mothers can be unpredictable when their children are in danger. The last thing we want is for Bridget to go to the media saying that the faeries stole her baby.”

Etienne’s frown melted into a look of sheer horror. “No one would believe her. They would think grief had driven her mad.”

“Do you want to bet your life on that?”

He didn’t answer me.

“I didn’t think so.” I stood, picking up my empty mug. “I’ll do this for you, Etienne. I’ll find her. But I have a few conditions, and if you’re not okay with them, you’re going to need to find somebody else.” I was bluffing. He’d know it, too, if he stopped to think about it. There are a lot of things that I’m capable of. Leaving children in danger isn’t one of them.

“Anything,” he said. “Whatever you ask for.”

Oak and ash, he really was desperate. In Faerie, that sort of promise can get you killed. “You have to pay my operating costs. I can’t take any other cases while I’m working on this.”

“Done,” he said.

I raised an eyebrow. “I haven’t even told you what I charge.”

Etienne half-smiled. “I’ve had a great deal of time to invest in the mortal world, October. Will two thousand dollars a day be sufficient to purchase your full attention?”

Two thousand dollars a day was nearly four times my normal rate. “Very sufficient,” I said. I almost felt bad about taking that much of his money, but if he was paying me, I wasn’t creating a debt between us. I liked Etienne treating me with respect because we were both in Sylvester’s service, not because I had a giant favor to hold over his head. That was how the purebloods did business. That kind of thing wasn’t for me.

“Good,” he said. “What else?”

“No secrets, no surprises. If Bridget calls again, I need to hear about it. If you remember something that doesn’t seem important, you need to tell me about it anyway, and you need to tell me immediately. I don’t care if it’s the middle of the day—call and wake me if you have to.” Privately, I didn’t think that was likely; if this case was like most, I wasn’t going to be sleeping much until it was over. “Right now, we don’t know what is or is not going to matter.”

Etienne frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“We’re hoping Chelsea disappeared because she figured out how to do that teleporting trick you’re so good at, and maybe she did. That’s our best case scenario, since it would just mean we needed to figure out where she teleported to, go there, and get her back.”

“And if it’s not the case…?” asked Etienne, slowly.

“If that’s not the case, then someone saw an unprotected teenage girl and grabbed her. Human kidnappers, we’re risking exposure. Fae kidnappers, who knows what they want her for?” A lot of things can be done with young, inexperienced changelings. I managed to find people who would spare me from the worst of them—and that’s saying something, considering Devin. That doesn’t mean I escaped knowing what they were.