Chimes at Midnight: An October Daye Novel (13 page)

Those words seemed to seal any hope Arden had that we could be convinced she was really Ardith, bookstore clerk, and not Arden, Princess in the Mists. Her face crumpled, tears springing up in her mismatched eyes. “No one said that to us,” she said. “No one knew how much we’d lost. Father was gone, and Mother . . .”

Understanding hit me. There was an element we’d missed, someone who should have either whisked the children safely out of the Kingdom or backed their claim to their father’s throne. “What happened?”

“She was one of his servants at the Court,” said Arden. She sniffled. “It was how they made sure no one was suspicious about them spending time together. It was like a game they played. They made sure we knew the rules, so we wouldn’t get mad at Father for refusing to acknowledge her, or mad at Mother for letting him ignore her. It was even fun, sometimes, when she brought us to the Court and made us wear disguises and pretend we were changelings, or servant-children, or fosters. We learned about hiding.” She reached up, touching the corner of her silver-mercury eye, and added, “We had a nursemaid to spin our illusions for us, back then. We didn’t have to depend on our own.”

“That makes sense,” I said, not wanting to interrupt the flow of her story, but not wanting her to think I wasn’t listening.

“When the earthquake came . . . things were falling everywhere. Nolan’s leg was hit when some rocks came out of the wall. I went running, looking for Mother. We weren’t supposed to talk to her when we were at Court. I broke the rules.” For a moment, her expression was a child’s, filled with the quiet conviction that breaking the rules somehow caused everything that followed. “The earthquake was still happening. I found her in one of the bedchambers, where she’d been changing the sheets. She was already . . .” She closed her eyes. “She was gone.”

I blinked. “Wait. She was dead? Did something fall and hit her?” Some of the chandeliers I’d seen in noble knowes could crush an adult, if the chandelier was falling and the adult was unlucky.

“No.” Arden opened her eyes. “Her throat was slit. She was murdered. My father was, too. There’s no way he died in the quake. He was Tuatha de Dannan. He was a
King
. He would have died saving his people, if he died at all. Instead, they said he was crushed. Just crushed. That’s not possible. That’s not my father. Someone killed them, and they would have killed Nolan and me if Marianne—our nursemaid—hadn’t taken us away before anyone realized who we were. So, yes, you found the missing Princess in the Mists. Now please, save my life, and leave.”

“Oh, oak and ash,” I whispered. People had always suspected that King Gilad was assassinated: Oleander de Merelands was in the Kingdom at the time, and her presence combined with his death was too convenient to ignore. This was as close as we could get to proof without questioning the night-haunts. Arden had been orphaned, and her parents had been murdered. “I’m so sorry.”

“It was a long time ago,” she said—but her tone made her words into lies. Her voice was shaky and raw, like the deaths had happened only days before. She’d been deferring her grief over a century, and grief deferred can turn toxic. “But that’s why you have to leave. You can’t be here. You can’t ask me to claim the throne. I have nothing left to lose.”

I paused, a sudden thought striking me. Arden wasn’t an only child. Her brother, Nolan, might not have been Crown Prince, but he was with her during the earthquake, and he went with her into hiding. So why was she only asking us to save
her
life by leaving? “Arden, where’s your brother?” I asked.

“You’re very young, aren’t you?” Her reply seemed nonsensical until she continued, saying, “You think you’re the first ones to track me down. Like
that
could happen. Our parents did their best, but there were always rumors. The lost Prince. The missing Princess. It was a fairy tale waiting to happen, and you know how we love our fairy tales.” She spun on her heel, stalking toward the back of the basement. After four steps, she paused, looking back, and demanded, “Well?”

“We’re coming,” I said, exchanging a glance with Tybalt. We walked after her, approaching the rear wall.

The closer we got, the stranger it looked. It was like someone had painted a perfect replica of the actual wall, and then hung the picture in place, using it to hide the fact that the room wasn’t all there. Arden slipped her hands into a fold in the air, pulling the illusion open like a heavy canvas curtain. It was a gesture much like the one Tybalt used when he was accessing the Shadow Roads, but with less natural ease: this wasn’t her spell.

“Marianne’s work,” she said, holding the illusion open for us. “She was Coblynau. She left us with everything she knew we’d need, and then she disappeared.”

That explained the quality of the illusion. Tuatha de Dannan are passable illusionists, but they’re barely in a league with the Daoine Sidhe, much less the masters. Coblynau are good, and more, can bind their spells into objects. That long-gone nursemaid saved her charges’ lives with the things she’d given them. She had to know it, too. It was the only reason someone who loved the children she was tasked to protect would have left them. Her presence was a danger, and her gifts were the shield her body couldn’t be.

We stepped through the curtain. Arden followed us through, letting the illusion fall closed again. Viewed from inside, it really
was
a curtain, a heavy canvas sheet with a slit cut down the middle. A narrow slice of the basement showed through the gap. Arden pinched it closed, sealing us inside.

The space on the other side of the illusion was small, about the size of my bedroom back at the old apartment. A bunk bed was flush with the basement wall. The bottom bunk was a welter of sheets and handmade quilts, and a reading lamp was set up there, gooseneck bent toward the piled-up pillows. Mismatched bookshelves lined the walls, piled with books, DVDs, even VHS and Betamax tapes. There was a stereo system and a television, which was on, quietly playing an episode of some television drama that I didn’t recognize. There hadn’t been any sound from the other side of the curtain.

A heavy wardrobe took up almost a quarter of the living space, made from what looked like redwood, with a pattern of blackberry vines and dragonflies carved into the doors. It was the nicest piece of furniture in the room, and as such, it immediately caught and held our eyes. It also raised the question of exactly how much Arden could transport when she teleported. That thing had to weigh two hundred pounds, easy.

She followed my gaze and scowled. “It was my mother’s,” said Arden. “You wanted to know why I don’t want your help reclaiming my throne? Tempting as the idea sounds? Come here.” She walked to the bunk bed, where she stepped onto the lower bunk, holding the upper rail in both hands. I walked after her, and at her silent urging, climbed the ladder so I could see what she was looking at.

In a way, I already knew what I’d see. But some things must be seen in their own time, and in their own way; some things can’t simply be said. As I looked down at the sleeping body of Prince Nolan Windermere in the Mists, I knew that this was one of those things. He looked almost enough like Arden to have been her twin. He had the same blackberry hair, and the same faintly olive Tuatha skin. His clothing was out of date, making him look like he’d just stepped out of a production of
The Great Gatsby
.

“Nolan didn’t like what that woman had been doing to our father’s Kingdom,” Arden said. “He wanted us to come forward during the War of Silences, but we were too young to rule, and we were so afraid. I convinced him to wait a little longer, and see if she’d get better. Maybe she’d turn into the kind of Queen our father wanted me to be, and then it wouldn’t matter that the throne wasn’t mine. As long as someone was caring for the Mists, it would be all right.”

“But she didn’t,” I said quietly.

“No. She got worse, and after Silences, she started changing the rules. Our father was never a great advocate for changeling rights,” the look she cast my way was almost apologetic, “but he believed they were a part of Faerie, and they deserved to be treated fairly. When he was alive, Oberon’s Law was applied to the changelings of his Kingdom. He let them hold titles, as long as they never aspired to claim anything greater than a Barony. He was . . . he was fair.”

I stared at her for a moment before looking back down at Nolan. “That’s not the world I grew up in,” I said.

Tybalt’s hand landed on my shoulder, squeezing once. I descended the ladder, putting my hand over his and holding him there as Arden began speaking again.

“Father maintained ties with the Undersea and the Sky Kingdoms. He insisted we treat the Cait Sidhe with respect, because Oberon wouldn’t have given them dominion over themselves if they weren’t worth respecting. He did all those things, and she did none of them. I was scared. Marianne—our nursemaid—was so clear about how important it was for us to hide, and I’d seen Mother’s body. Nolan never did. He wanted us to come out of hiding. He wanted us to take back what was supposed to be ours. He wasn’t
scared
.” From her tone, she wished he had been.

“What happened?” I asked.

“He said we had to go to the false Queen and demand our Kingdom back. I told him he was being foolish, that all he’d do was get us both killed. But Nolan never listened to a word he didn’t want to hear. He slipped out of the boarding house where we were living while I was at work. The pixies led me to him two days later. He was in the bushes in Golden Gate Park, with the arrow still in his chest. They’d used it to leave a note.” A tear ran down her cheek, falling onto the pillow next to Nolan’s head. It probably wasn’t the first.

“What did it say?”

“That I was lucky they’d only used elf-shot; that if they saw either of us, ever again, they wouldn’t be so merciful.” She looked up again, eyes hardening. “They would have killed him. I
know
they would have killed him. But they needed me to know I’d be a fool to stand up to them.”

“No,” I said. “I’m sorry, Arden, but no. They didn’t need you to know. They weren’t being merciful. They needed you to be
afraid
. If they’d really wanted to show you that you were too weak to defeat them, they would have killed your brother. They left him alive because they wanted you scared, not angry. The War of Silences happened in the 1930s, and judging by his clothes, that’s how long he’s been asleep. That means he’ll wake up soon. Do you want to tell him they won? That they made you sit out the fight because they told you bad things would happen if you didn’t?”

Arden looked at me solemnly. Then she looked down at her brother, reaching out to wipe an imaginary smear of dust away from his cheek. “Father did everything he could to protect us,” she said.

“It’s time for you to pay him back,” I said. “It’s time for you to protect his Kingdom.”

“
Your
Kingdom,” said Tybalt.

Arden shook her head. “We’ve been safe because we’ve been invisible. We have no allies. We have no resources. My brother’s been elf-shot. Where could we possibly go?”

I blinked. And then, slowly, I smiled. “Princess,” I said, “I know someone who would very much like the opportunity to meet you.”

T
HE REDWOOD-SCENTED PORTAL closed behind us as Arden and I stepped into the darkened hall of Goldengreen. Arden staggered, looking winded. I offered a hand to steady her.

“Easy,” I said. “It’s been a while since you’ve had to take passengers.” Not to mention the strain of teleporting into someone else’s knowe, where the wards wouldn’t recognize her. We’d probably just broken half a dozen rules of etiquette, as well as a few prohibitions against trespassing, but I wasn’t as concerned about that. Dean would understand once he saw who I was bringing with me. We wouldn’t have been able to get inside at all if I hadn’t been the keeper of Goldengreen at one point—and most teleporters couldn’t have made the journey without knowing their destination. She was strong.

I hoped that was going to be a good thing.

Arden shrugged off my hand, looking around us. “Where’s my brother?”

“He and Tybalt should be right behind us,” I said. It had been hard to convince Arden to take me while Tybalt carried Nolan, but the division was necessary. No matter how strong she was, she couldn’t open a portal big enough to get four people safely across the city. The trouble was, since Nolan was asleep, he wouldn’t know not to breathe on the Shadow Roads. That meant taking the long way around, through the Court of Cats, to give him time to thaw.

A swarm of pixies raced down the hall, scattering off in all directions to avoid hitting us. Rather than flying on, they clung to the walls and tapestries, scolding in shrill, bell-like voices. A female whose wings and body were glowing a bright daisy yellow stopped to hover in front of my nose, shaking her finger and scolding me in a high, chiming voice.

“Hey, I couldn’t ask permission before we came,” I protested. “Don’t worry. Count Lorden will approve once I have a chance to explain.”

“I’m glad to hear you’re planning to explain,” said a voice.

“Hi, Marcia.” I sighed with relief, turning my back on the pixie as I faced her. “I’m sorry to burst in like this, but we couldn’t go outside; the Queen’s guards know what my human disguise looks like. Tybalt should be arriving with another guest any minute now. Again, sorry for the lack of advance warning. Things have been a little crazy.” I paused, blinking. “Marcia?”

The quarter-blooded changeling was staring at Arden, blue eyes gone so wide and normally rosy cheeks gone so pale that for a moment, I was afraid she was going to pass out. Then she shook her head, smile returning, and stepped forward to offer her hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t catch your name.”

Arden took a breath, and said, “I am Princess Arden Windermere, rightful heir to this Kingdom, and I am about to be sick.” She sounded apologetic about that last part. I suppose princesses aren’t supposed to puke. “Do you have a bathroom I can use?”

Not the most regal greeting ever, but Marcia took it in stride, offering Arden her arm. “Right this way, Your Highness, and while you’re settling your stomach, I’ll tell the Count you’ve arrived.” She cast a half-panicked look over Arden’s shoulder at me. “He’ll be surprised to hear that he’s hosting such a royal guest.”

I shrugged, mouthing “Sorry.”

“I’m not particularly royal anymore.” Arden took Marcia’s arm. Apparently, now that Marcia knew her real name, she fell into the category of “trust, because there’s no other option.” It was pragmatic of her, although it may have had something to do with her apparently urgent need to vomit. As she was led down the hall, I heard her ask, “Do you have any crackers?”

Half the pixies followed them. The other half stayed with me, still ringing in strident annoyance. I sighed and dug my phone out of my pocket. Scrolling quickly through my contact list, I found the name I needed and pressed the button to complicate the situation even further.

After the second ring, Etienne’s calm, overly cultured voice said, “Hello?”

I sighed with relief. “Hi, Etienne,” I said. “Can you put His Grace on for me? I sort of have a situation.”

There was a pause while Etienne considered my request. We go way back, Etienne and me, and my part of our relationship has traditionally consisted of giving him headaches and creating messes he has to clean up. That changed a few months ago, when I saved the life of the teenage daughter he hadn’t even known he had. Etienne had always possessed a certain grudging respect for me. Saving Chelsea may have finally made us friends.

“Is this one of those situations where the less I know, the happier I’ll be?” he asked.

“Absolutely. I absolve you of all involvement, at least for right now. Just please, please, get me the Duke.”

“Hang on,” said Etienne. There was a thump as he set the receiver down. It wasn’t loud, but it was loud enough I might have missed the soft sound of Tybalt’s footsteps, had they not been accompanied by the pennyroyal and musk scent of his magic—and the maddened shrieks of the pixies, who were clearly unhappy about the ongoing invasion of their territory.

I turned. Tybalt was behind me, holding Nolan in a fireman’s carry. He was winded, and as I watched, he lowered the unconscious Prince to the floor, half-propping him against the wall. “Remind me, next time I agree to something like this, that I am an idiot and should not be trusted to make these decisions,” he said, wheezing.

I grimaced. Before I could reply, the phone was picked up, and Sylvester said, “October? What’s wrong?”

Moment of truth time. I took a deep breath, and answered his question with a question. “If I had reason to believe one of our local nobles was holding their demesne illegitimately, would you want to know?” That should be vague enough that he wouldn’t jump straight to “you mean the Queen.” I hoped.

Silence until, finally, he asked, “October, where are you?”

“I’m at Goldengreen.” I paused before adding the next piece of the night’s news. I didn’t want to upset him, but he needed to know. “Oh, and the Queen of the Mists has sort of exiled me from her Kingdom.”

His sharp intake of breath was audible even through the phone. Then he said, “Please come to Shadowed Hills at your earliest convenience. And to answer your earlier question . . . I would absolutely like to know.” The phone went dead.

I lowered it, closing the lid as I turned to Tybalt. “Sylvester’s on board and wants us to drop by later. Now we just need Quentin.”

Tybalt raised an eyebrow. “How’s that?”

“He’s my squire, he should be here to watch me rail against the monarchy.”

Tybalt sighed. “Give me your phone.”

“What?” I blinked. Of all the things he could have requested, that one was near the bottom of the list.

“I will call Raj, who has recently taken to carrying one of those damnable machines. Raj will go get Quentin. They’re similar in size, and it’s time my nephew started transporting others through the Shadow Roads. He needs the practice.”

“. . . right.” I handed my phone to Tybalt, trying not to think about the fact that I was signing up my squire as a test case for a Prince-in-training. “I’m going to go see if I can find Dean and get help carrying Nolan to a better napping spot.” Hopefully, Dean would be okay with the fact that his knowe was becoming party central for the anti-Queen action. The fact that his parents were together in part because of Arden’s parents might help. If I was lucky.

“I’ll be right there,” Tybalt assured me, and began to dial.

I turned and walked toward the courtyard. That was my best hope of finding Dean fast. If I was going to run this fire drill, I wanted to run it
right
. Maybe it was cliché to hide the Crown Princess of the Mists in the only County in San Francisco whose regent had ties to the Undersea, but this was my first planned rebellion against the throne, and I was flying by the seat of my pants. Those pants said “go where she’s likely to find allies.”

Even if this didn’t work out, I had little doubt the Undersea would be happy to take Arden and Nolan in, hiding them where the Queen could never reach them. I snorted with suppressed amusement. Me, October “I was a fish for fourteen years” Daye, advocating that someone go hide with the mermaids. I guess some traumas get better with time. That, or they wind up buried under newer, bigger problems.

Dean was running across the courtyard when I stepped inside. His eyes widened when he saw me, and he stumbled to a stop. “What’s going on?” he demanded.

“Do you want the long version or the short version?”

“The pixies and bogeys are going out of their minds! I don’t really understand them—”

“Who does?”

“—but Marcia ran off when they started freaking out, and she hasn’t come back, and now you’re here! What’s
happening
?”

I took a deep breath. “Marcia is in the bathroom with one of your unexpected guests, who needed to throw up after teleporting us both across the city. Tybalt is in the hall with another, who isn’t throwing up, largely because he’s been elf-shot.”

“Tybalt’s been elf-shot?” asked Dean blankly.

“No, the other guest has been elf-shot. Tybalt’s fine. He’s calling Raj to pick up Quentin and bring him here. Sylvester is also on the way.”

Dean frowned. “Anyone else?”

“No, that’s it for now. Only you should probably call your parents back, because they’re going to want to be here for this particular debriefing.”

Dean’s frown deepened, growing more suspicious. “Why is that?”

In for a penny . . . “Because the guest in the bathroom with Marcia is Crown Princess Arden Windermere in the Mists, and the elf-shot man in the hall is her younger brother, Nolan. They’re here because we need—
I
need—Arden to take her throne back, and she has good reason to be afraid for her life if the Queen hears about her. I figured we might find allies in Goldengreen. Or, if not, we might at least find a fast ship to very, very far away.”

“I hate sailing, and I’m supposed to close the bookstore tomorrow. Jude’s going to be pissed if I don’t show up,” said Arden. I turned. She was standing in the doorway. Marcia was a few feet behind her, still looking pale. Arden, meanwhile, smiled wanly and walked forward to offer Dean her hand. “I’m told you’re the Count who currently holds this demesne. We appreciate your hospitality.” She cast a glance my way. “I’m definitely going to need to hear the story of what happened to Countess Winterrose. I thought that old spider would be squatting here until the stars burned out.”

“She died,” I said.

“Short story,” said Arden. She turned back to Dean. “I’m sorry to barge in on you like this. October said this might be a safe place to go, and we never went out into the open. No one could have seen us.”

Dean blinked, first at Arden, and then at the hand she was offering him. Finally, he took a step backward and bowed. His form wasn’t what I’d have expected from a courtier raised on land, but his posture was good, and his spine curled in the perfect mixture of deference and civility. Courtly manners aren’t identical throughout Faerie. They’re still recognizable, whatever form they take.

“If you are who October indicates you to be, I am your servant,” he said, straightening. “If you are not, you are still welcome here. Any friend of hers is a friend of Goldengreen.”

Arden blinked mismatched eyes in visible surprise before withdrawing her hand. “I guess I’m a little out of touch.”

“A hundred years among the mortals will do that, I understand,” said Tybalt, walking in behind us. He was carrying Nolan slung over his shoulder like a sack of slumbering potatoes. “Where might I deposit this gentleman? I am loath to drop a potential Prince a second time, but he is
remarkably
heavy for one who has not eaten in decades.”

“Marcia.” Dean looked to his seneschal. “Please prepare a guest chamber for the Princess’ brother. Meanwhile—” Whatever Dean was intending to say was lost as two teenage boys burst through the doorway, both of them moving at a speed that was probably unsafe when there were other people involved. Quentin managed to skid to a stop, his shoes making an unpleasant scraping noise on the cobblestones. Raj seemed like he was on a collision course with Arden until Tybalt reached out with his free hand and grabbed his nephew by the scruff of his neck, bringing him to an abrupt halt.

I didn’t bother hiding my smile. “Hi, boys,” I said. “Welcome to our party.”

“Did you really find the Princess?” Raj demanded, twisting in Tybalt’s hand as he tried to get a better look at Arden. “Let me down, I want to see!”

“He was never this willful before you came along,” said Tybalt mildly.

“Liar,” I replied. Raj was a Prince of Cats. “He’s always been this bad. Raj, calm down. There’s enough stupid political intrigue for everybody.”

Raj stopped squirming. Tybalt let him go, and he brushed himself off, going from hyperactive kitten to feline royalty in an instant. He turned to Arden. “Hello,” he said. He didn’t bow. Cait Sidhe bow to members of the Divided Courts only when they want to, and a wayward Princess he’d only just met didn’t rate. Instead, he looked at her, taking her measure with his eyes.

Arden might not have remembered all her courtly manners, but she clearly knew how to be looked at by a cat. She crossed her arms, raising an eyebrow, and eyed Raj right back, giving as good as she got. Like Quentin, Raj was growing like a weed, although she wouldn’t appreciate that the way that I did. When I first met him, he was a half-starved refugee in Blind Michael’s lands. Now he was a tall, thin teenage boy who somehow managed to avoid “gangly” in favor of looking like he was going to be snapped up to model jeans at any moment. His hair was russet red tipped with brown, like an Abyssinian cat’s, and his eyes were the green of leaded carnival glass. He looked nothing like Tybalt—they weren’t blood relatives—but after spending so much time around the Cait Sidhe, there was no way for me to look at him and not see the subtle marks of power that labeled him as a Prince.