Chimes at Midnight

“I’ll help,” said Quentin. I blinked at him, and he looked at me, finally letting all his anguish and terror show. “I shouldn’t have walked ahead. I should have been there. This is something I can do to help you. Please. Let me help.”

“Of course.” I held up the book on hope chests. “Go through this, too. See if there’s anything that might help you figure out where these damn things are now. So far, I’ve got nothing. The index tells me who had the chests when they were divided, but it uses names, not titles, and the only Firstborn I’m on a first-name basis with is my Mom.” And Acacia, but she was beyond my reach at the moment. If the Shadow Roads were hard, the roads it would take to get to the skerry where she lived would probably kill me.

“Okay,” he said. Then he smiled, a little awkwardly, and said, “You’re not really on a first-name basis with her, are you? You call her ‘Mom.’”

“See, now you really understand why I need you going through this book. We’re going to go see the Luidaeg. I may not be on a first-name basis with her, but I don’t think that matters. Maybe she knew this Antigone lady, and can point us in the direction of another hope chest. But first . . .” I shook my head. “We’re going to go to Walther first.”

“Walther?” asked Mags blankly.

“He’s a friend of mine. An alchemist. He’s been trying to find a way to make goblin fruit less addictive, or at least come up with a treatment for the people who are already addicted.” Walther was a pureblood Tylwyth Teg alchemist masquerading as a human chemistry professor at UC Berkeley. He’d been trying to isolate the addictive properties of goblin fruit, working under the assumption that since the addiction was magical, the treatment would be too. I’d been supplying him with the goblin fruit I confiscated from the dealers I cleared off the streets. I was happy to do it. At least I knew that whatever I gave to him was removed from circulation for good.

“And you think he can help you?”

I shrugged. “It’s a long shot, but so is everything else. He’s been working with the goblin fruit for months, trying to find something to cut the craving. It’s time for us to see how far along he really is.”

Quentin nodded. “I’ll call you when we find something helpful. And I’ll call Goldengreen if I need a ride anywhere. Raj can come and pick me up.”

“It’ll give him something to do other than hanging around making Arden uncomfortable.” I turned back to Mags, opening my mouth to speak, and stopped as I saw her staring at the flask of fireflies. “The Luidaeg gave those to us,” I said, perhaps unnecessarily. “She thought they’d help us find King Gilad’s missing kids. They did, so I guess she was right about that.”

“They’re from Annwn, aren’t they?” She drifted closer, a wondering look on her face. “I used to chase sparks like this across the moor when I was a child, before I’d ever seen the human world—or ever seen a human, even. Back when we lived in Annwn, and everything was going to be wonderful forever . . .”

Watching Mags approach the fireflies felt weirdly intrusive, like this was something I wasn’t supposed to be seeing. I cleared my throat and stood. “Yeah,” I said. “They’re from Annwn.” I decided not to mention that we’d been to Annwn ourselves, not that long ago. From the way she was looking at the fireflies, hearing that might break her heart.

“That’s amazing.”

“Well, we don’t need them right now, and it’s probably best if we’re not carrying anything extra, so why don’t I leave those here with Quentin? That way you can keep looking at them, after you finish looking things up.”

Mags was close enough to touch the glass of the flask with one trembling fingertip. She looked up, and nodded. “Yes, that sounds like it would be wonderful. I promise I won’t let anything happen to them. They’re so beautiful . . .”

“Yeah, they’re pretty neat.” I glanced to Quentin. “You sure you want to stay here?”

“Tybalt doesn’t need to be carrying us both right now,” he said. “I’ll be fine. And it’s like I said, if I need you, I’ll call.”

“Okay, kiddo. Just stay safe.” I wanted to hug him. I wanted to tell him he’d always been an amazing squire, and one of the best kids I’d ever known. He was definitely better than I deserved, on both counts. But that felt too much like saying good-bye—maybe because saying good-bye was exactly what it would have been—and so I didn’t say anything. I just turned, offering Tybalt my hands, and let him pull me first into his arms, and then down, down, into the dark.

FIFTEEN

TYBALT DIDN’T LET ME RUN with him this time. He hoisted me into his arms as soon as we were on the Shadow Roads, carrying me through the darkness. I didn’t protest. I knew as well as he did what we were up against, and if we were going from San Francisco to the UC Berkeley campus, I needed all the help I could get. Instead of fighting, I just curled there, trying to borrow what warmth I could from his body, and held my breath, waiting for it to be over.