Chimes at Midnight

Quentin all but dove for the bed, and for a few moments, it was just the three of us clinging to each other, looking for a shred of hope in the comfort of one another’s arms. Hope seemed to be in short supply at the moment. My throat still hurt, and I could feel the beginnings of hunger twisting in my stomach. Hunger that wouldn’t be satisfied by anything from the mortal world. A slice of pie, on the other hand . . .

I shoved the thought aside, squeezed Sylvester and Quentin a little more tightly, and then pulled away. It was difficult to do, because none of us wanted to let go. They were my stability in a chaotic world, and I was more scared than I could allow either of them to see. It wouldn’t have been fair.

Speaking of stability . . . I frowned, suddenly realizing who was missing. “Where’s Tybalt?”

“Um.” Quentin let go, taking a step back from the bed. “He . . . he doesn’t know.”

“What?!” I hadn’t realized my torn-up throat would let me yell until I had already done it. I regretted it immediately. Glaring, I repeated, “What?” in a raspy whisper.

“There was nothing he could have done by being here, October, and I’m sorry, but his temper isn’t precisely steady when it comes to you. When he came, we sent him away. Told him you were finally getting some rest, and he should go about his business.” Sylvester looked at me with genuine apology in his expression. “I wanted you awake before we told him of the . . . situation.”

“What, you mean the part where I’m a jam-junkie now, and oh, right, I tried to turn myself human so I could enjoy it more while it’s killing me?” I shook my head, shoving the covers aside. “Where are my clothes? Where is my phone?”

“October, please.”

I whirled, fighting a wave of dizziness as I pointed at Sylvester and snapped, “Don’t you ‘October’ me. He is my family. Even if you couldn’t respect that, I don’t understand how the hell you got Quentin to go along with you.”

“I was so scared,” said Quentin quietly. I turned to him. He met my eyes without flinching. That may be the only thing that kept me from yelling. “I didn’t know what was going to happen, and Jin needed us to stay away so she could work, and Tybalt . . . there wasn’t anything he could do. The Duke sent him away. I didn’t interfere.”

I took a deep, slow breath, holding it as long as I could before I blew it out through my nose and said, “This isn’t over. But right now, I need my phone.”

“You need your rest,” said Sylvester.

I swung back around to face him, grateful to have a target again. “This isn’t your fault—if it’s anyone’s, it’s mine—but I’m not going to sit back and play invalid while you all wring your hands about how horrible it is. I’m going to find a way to fix it. Because I’m a hero. And that’s what heroes do. Now where. Is my. Phone?”

“I’ll get it,” said Quentin, and stood, scampering to the dresser with a speedy grace I envied. Even under my dizziness and steadily growing hunger, my body felt clumsy and strange, like I was moving through cotton.

It was almost funny. When Amandine changed the balance of my blood—I’d been elf-shot, and I would have died if she’d left me as I was—I’d wound up feeling like my body wasn’t mine anymore. It was too quick, too strong, and too fae. Now, I’d managed to shift myself in the opposite direction, and I was having the exact same problem. This body, my body, didn’t feel like home anymore. It felt like I’d been transformed into a stranger. And it was something I was going to have to deal with, because it wasn’t going to change any time soon.

Quentin came back with my phone, pressing it into my hand without a word. I flipped it open, punching in the number for home on something that was just barely this side of autopilot.

May picked up on the first ring. “I told you, she’s not here.”

“Hi, May,” I said shakily. “How’s it going?”

“Toby!” Her voice was like an ice pick in my ear. It was all I could do not to drop the phone. “Oh, thank Oberon. Did Sylvester finally wake you up? Did they spike your drink or something? Because I gotta tell you, girl, this was not a good time for an all-day nap.”

“All-day . . . May, what time is it?”

“About eight o’clock. Tybalt’s been skulking around here since they threw him out of Shadowed Hills, and when he’s not skulking here, he’s visiting Goldengreen or making annoying phone calls to find out whether I’ve heard from you. Can you maybe ask Sylvester never to do this again? Because while I like Tybalt and all, having an agitated Cait Sidhe checking in every twenty minutes isn’t doing anything for my nerves.”

“Yeah, see, normally, I don’t think Sylvester would have asked Tybalt to leave the Duchy while I was unconscious.” I rubbed my face. “There were extenuating circumstances.”

“Extenuating circumstances meaning . . . ?” she asked.

“Meaning I got hit in the face with a pie.”

“A pie?” Now she just sounded dubious. “Was it an evil pie?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it was.”