Chimes at Midnight

I smiled. “Yeah, there’s that, too. I’m hungry, even.” And not for goblin fruit. I wanted a steak. Rare, if not raw. My body had a lot of blood to build back up. “So let’s find Nolan while Dianda gets patched up, grab a sandwich, and then head back over to Muir Woods. We have ourselves a war to win.”

Tybalt looked surprised. Then, slowly, he smiled back.

“Why, October,” he said. “I thought you’d never ask.”

TWENTY-SIX

FINDING NOLAN MEANT RETURNING to the dungeons. It hurt this time, the iron in the walls singing to my blood and sending a bruised ache through my entire body. It probably hurt when I was going back for Tybalt, too, but I’d been too panicked to notice. Stress is helpful that way. When I need to ignore something unpleasant, I just work myself into a fine frenzy and charge. I realize it was stupid later, when I have time.

Dianda stayed in the treasury while Tybalt and I followed one of the Queen’s guards—or former guards, if they were serious about defecting, and not just trying for a double-cross—into the dark. There’s not much iron in the Undersea. She was putting on a stoic face, but I knew it had to be hurting her, and more exposure wouldn’t have done anyone any good.

As for the guard, he looked uncomfortable about the fact that I hadn’t wiped the blood off myself. It was drying in a thick, slightly tacky film. I could feel it cracking at the corners of my mouth every time I spoke. As long as I didn’t have to look at it, it didn’t bother me. I might need it, and I didn’t feel like cutting myself again if I was already conveniently coated in gore. Besides, this was one of the men who’d imprisoned me—and Dianda—without hesitation when he was given the order. Faerie is a feudal society. That doesn’t mean I have to like it.

Tybalt matched my stride. I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye, trying to assess his condition. He’d apparently been waiting for that. He met my gaze, giving a small, imperious lift of one eyebrow. I smiled wryly, the blood around my mouth cracking again.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m a little, you know. Shaken.”

“It’s good for you to sample your own medicine from time to time,” he said. “Perhaps the memory of your current feelings will motivate you to run heedlessly into danger with a bit less frequency.”

I thought about that as we walked. Finally, I shook my head. “No, probably not.”

Tybalt smirked.

Further conversation was cut off as the guard at the lead of our small procession stopped. There was a narrow, iron-banded door on the other side of the hall. “We’re here,” he said.

“Where’s here?” I asked, frowning at the door. “This isn’t a normal cell.”

“No,” he said. “The Queen’s . . . I’m sorry, I don’t know what else to call her. My former liege’s instructions were very clear. The prisoner was placed in seclusion, to prevent his plotting further insurrection.”

“Um, one, Dianda was a lot more likely to plot insurrection, since she was pissed off and also technically isn’t under the jurisdiction of any Queen of the Mists, and two, Nolan’s been elf-shot. He can’t plot anything, unless it’s a really epic snore.” I glared at the guard. He squirmed. I glare well. I glare even better when I’m covered in blood. “What’s down there that makes it worse than the cells up here?”

“That is where prisoners who must be kept . . . calm . . . are confined,” said the guard. “The room keeps them . . . calm.”

He looked so uncomfortable, and so unhappy, that I yielded, asking, “You weren’t happy about putting him down there, were you?”

“Milady, had I been given any other alternative, I would have taken it.”

I nodded. “Arden may be more forgiving because of that, if we get her brother back alive. So what, exactly, is down there that keeps people euphemistically ‘calm’?”

Looking more miserable by the second, the guard said, “Iron.”

The whole dungeon was dripping with iron. My skin crawled even standing here, and I was part human. I frowned. “That’s not a sufficient answer.”

“Lots of iron.”

He was standing as far away from the door as it was possible to be while still existing in the same stretch of hall. I frowned again before eyeing the door.

“How much iron are we talking here?”

He didn’t answer.

Oberon’s Law says purebloods aren’t allowed to kill each other. But that law is enforced by the purebloods, and they’ve had a long time to find loopholes. It says nothing about torture, for example, or about accidental death—say, from an overdose of iron. “How did you get him down there?”

“The Queen retains changelings on her staff for matters such as these.”

I didn’t bother correcting him on the former Queen’s status. Seeing her get her ass handed to her would be correction enough, and I had other things to worry about. “I don’t believe I’m doing this,” I muttered, and handed the hope chest to Tybalt. “Don’t let anyone touch this.”

He frowned. “October . . .”

“My father was human. I can do this.”

“Your father was human, but less than half your blood remembers that. Can you carry Nolan on your own?”