Chimes at Midnight

I looked at him, trying to project a calm I didn’t feel. “Only mostly,” I said. “I guess the universe decided it was time the Queen had a fighting chance. Now if you’re with me, it’s time to kick her ass out of this Kingdom.” I extended my hand. After a moment’s pause, he took it.

Dianda was the only one who’d been arrested; she was the only one viewed as a threat. The Queen should have thought bigger. Because as long as any of us were free, she was finished.

Hopefully. Assuming we could all stay alive that long.

NINETEEN

“WHERE ARE WE GOING?” asked Danny. He didn’t slow down the car; he just kept going, rocketing out of the parking lot at a speed that made his previous unsafe driving seem like child’s play. I clung to the oh-shit handle above the door, trying to keep my ass in contact with the seat. Quentin was rattling around in the backseat like a bouncy ball.

Oh, well. He was a teenage boy. A few bruises were good for him. “Valencia,” I said. “We want a bookstore you’ve probably never noticed before, across the street from an Irish pub that you probably have.”

“Dog Eared Books isn’t across the street,” protested Danny, taking a corner sharply enough that I would have sworn the back tires actually lifted off the pavement. “It’s down the block a ways.”

“Yes, but we’re not going to Dog Eared Books,” I said. “We’re going to a place called Borderlands.”

“No such place.”

I gave him a sidelong look, or as much of one as I dared when we were moving that fast. “Danny. You’re a Troll, driving a cab. Yesterday, I was a superhero, and today I’m addicted to jam. Jam. Do you really think we get to pass judgment on what does and does not get to exist? There’s a bookstore on Valencia that you’ve never seen. I promise.”

“If you say so,” he muttered, and eased off the gas.

“I do,” I said, breathing a near-silent sigh of relief. Finding Arden wasn’t going to do us any good if we got pancaked in the process.

Silence from the backseat reminded me that Danny wasn’t the only one who’d never been to Borderlands. I twisted to see Quentin looking at me dubiously.

“You want to say something?”

“Yeah . . . are you sure there’s a bookstore there?” He at least had the good grace to look faintly abashed as he continued, “You might have dreamt it.”

Anger rose in my throat like bile. I swallowed it back down and said, “I can understand why you might be concerned about that, but Tybalt and I went to Borderlands before I was hit with the evil pie.” No matter how many times I said “evil pie,” it never started sounding normal. “The store is there, it’s just hidden from anyone who claims allegiance to the Mists. Arden has been hiding there for a while. It may not be where she went to ground, but it’s the best lead we have.”

“And if she’s not there?” rumbled Danny.

Her magic smelled like redwood trees and blackberries. So did the place where I had heard her name spoken to open a shallowing that had been holding itself closed for decades. “If she’s not there, we head for Muir Woods,” I said. “She’s connected to the shallowing there, somehow. She might try running for it. It seems like less of a sure bet, but again. We take the leads we have when we’re dealing with something like this.”

“I don’t like it,” said Danny.

“Join the club,” I replied.

We were in the strange hours of the night, where traffic became unpredictable, here heavy, there nonexistent. The route Danny was plotting took us straight through San Francisco, ignoring the daily logic of the city in favor of a more personal approach. He never slowed down. Somehow, he managed not to run any red lights or hit any pedestrians, either. Those Gremlin charms were worth their weight in whatever he had paid for them.

When we reached Valencia, he took his weight off the gas, reducing our speed until we were almost obeying the law. “Now where?” he demanded.

“Hang on.” I took the flask of fireflies out of my pocket, using my finger to coax one of the brightly-shining insects out. Carefully, I transferred it to his shoulder, where it settled into a pose of apparent contentment. “Look down the street until you see something you don’t recognize, and park there.”

“What?” Danny frowned at me before turning to scan Valencia. “That’s about the dumbest thing I’ve ever—holy shit, girl, there’s a bookstore there. What the hell? When did they build a bookstore?”

“Since the building is like a hundred years old, a while ago,” I said. “Can you park?”

“I’m on it.” He twisted the wheel abruptly enough to make the tires squeal in protest. Somehow, this ended with us wedged into a space that had just opened in front of the Phoenix, the Irish pub almost directly across the street from Borderlands. “We’re here,” he said smugly, and turned off the engine.