Chimes at Midnight

Working together, we were able to feed Nolan the rest of the liquid in the flagon. Hopefully, that would be enough, and if not, he’d at least be able to hold up until we were in a position to offer further treatment. He didn’t show any signs of waking up, either during the process or after. Guess that was too much to hope for. I put the cruet into my pocket and tucked the flagon under my arm before helping Tybalt lift Nolan off the floor. Now that we weren’t dealing with an entire room full of iron, carrying him was a hell of a lot easier.

“Where now?” asked Tybalt.

“Find Dianda, punch the asshole that locked us in the dungeon, get the hell out of here,” I said, and started walking.

The hall outside the treasury was deserted, but it wasn’t difficult to know which way to go: Dianda hadn’t been wearing shoes in her bipedal form. Her footprints were the only ones that were both bloody and bare. We followed them through the halls of the Queen’s knowe, until we came to a pair of slightly-ajar double doors. There was only silence from the other side.

Cautiously, I pushed one of the doors further open, and found myself peering at a stretch of the Queen’s receiving hall.

“There you are.” It was Dianda’s voice. She sounded perfectly fine. Restless, but fine. “I was getting bored.”

I turned toward her voice, and blinked. She was sitting on a plain wooden chair, with seven of the Queen’s guards behind her. The one who’d been the first to swear fealty to Arden was among them, I noted. Six more, including the man who’d tried to leave us for dead in the dungeon, were unconscious and tied up on the floor in front of her.

“. . . okay, that works,” I said. “We have a treatment for iron poisoning, and we have the Prince. We need to get moving. Does anybody have a car?” Treatment or not, I wasn’t trusting the Shadow Roads until I’d seen Tybalt have a good night’s sleep, and I doubted my ability to make Nolan teleport me more than a short distance. His control wasn’t good when he was asleep.

“I do,” said one of the guards, a diminutive female Glastig with a faint Welsh accent.

“Okay, we have a car. What’s your name?”

“Lowri.”

I paused, looking at her assessingly. “Were you recruited out of Silences?”

“After the fall, yes.” She met my eyes without hesitation.

“Great.” If she was a former member of the guard in Silences, she was a lot less likely to be loyal to the Queen, and that made it safer to get into a car with her. “Come on, guys. Let’s blow this Popsicle stand.”

Dianda frowned. “What’s a Popsicle?”

I sighed. “Okay, see, that would have been a dramatic exit, but you had to go and spoil it. Come on. We need to get to Muir Woods before the fighting ends.”

“Why?” asked one of the guards.

“I figure either they need us, or I’ll get to see the bitch whose house this is,” I indicated the room, “getting her ass handed to her. Either way I win.”

“I’m out of things to hit anyway,” said Dianda, and stood. “Let’s go.”

Leaving the six guards behind with their former fellows, Dianda, Tybalt, and I followed the Glastig out of the hall, still carrying Nolan between us. It was time to get to Muir Woods. It was time for us to end this.

TWENTY-EIGHT

LOWRI LED US OUT of the receiving hall and through the familiar rocky cave to the beach. We trudged across the beach to the parking lot, where only a few cars had stuck out the night without being ticketed or towed. I glanced toward the horizon, which was only just beginning to brighten with false dawn. Tybalt followed my gaze.

“We should have time to reach the woods,” he said.

“If we don’t hit traffic,” I agreed.

“This is me,” said Lowri, drawing our attention to a battered brown station wagon that looked like it had been manufactured sometime in the mid-1970s. Electrical tape held the back and front bumpers in place, and patched a large hole in the rear passenger-side door.

“I don’t know much about human-world cars, but I’m pretty sure that’s not a good one,” said Dianda dubiously.

“Her Highness doesn’t allow her guard to take jobs in the mortal world,” said Lowri, digging keys out of her pocket. The human disguise she had crafted for herself concealed her hooves and goat-like ears, and made her royal livery look like jeans and an old green sweater. I wasn’t sure where the pocket was on her actual clothing, and for once, I had the sense not to ask. “Surprisingly, most mechanics don’t accept payment in dewdrops and moonbeams.”

“But it runs?” asked Tybalt, eyeing the car.

“I can usually talk somebody who understands cars into a freebie when things get bad,” she said. “It runs.” Glastig are masters of persuasion. If Lowri focused on a mortal mechanic, they’d have no chance of telling her no.

Somehow, I couldn’t find it in myself to judge her. We do what we have to in order to survive in this world. When your regent won’t let you work, you find another way to keep body and soul together—no matter how unethical that may seem.