Seanan McGuire - Chimes at Midnight

For Jude and Alan,

and all the staff at Borderlands Books.

But especially for Ripley. We miss you.

Chimes at Midnight marks the start of what I view as the second stage in Toby’s journey, and I am grateful and a little awed that you’re all here with me, watching it happen. Writing these books is forever a labor of love, and a big part of that is all of you. Seriously. Thank you all. Thanks also to the Machete Squad, as always, since without them, I would probably still be hiding under the bed rather than facing the tangles of draft two; to the Disney Magic Bitches, for putting up with endless trips to Disneyland; and to Vixy, Amy, Brooke, and Shawn, for being extremely forgiving of the fact that no matter where we go, Toby goes there too.

I remain utterly delighted with my agent and personal superhero, Diana Fox, with my editor and savior, Sheila Gilbert, and with my eternally fantastic cover artist, Chris McGrath. Thanks to Christopher Mangum and Tara O’Shea for website design and maintenance, and to Kate Secor for keeping my email from eating me alive. I know it’s hungry . . .

We have come so far, and we have so far yet to go, and I am honored to have you all here with me to see where we wind up. I hope you’ll continue to stick around.

My soundtrack while writing Chimes at Midnight consisted mostly of Prepare the Preparations , by Ludo, Carry the Fire , by Delta Rae, Fairytale , by Heather Dale, endless live concert recordings of the Counting Crows, and Journey’s Greatest Hits , by Journey. Any errors in this book are entirely my own. The errors that aren’t here are the ones that all these people helped me fix.

Now remember: You must not look at goblin men. You must not buy their fruits . . .

All pronunciations are given strictly phonetically. This only covers races explicitly named in the first seven books, omitting Undersea races not appearing in, or mentioned in, book seven.

Afanc: ah-fank . Plural is Afanc.

Annwn: ah-noon . No plural exists.

Bannick: ban-nick . Plural is Bannicks.

Barghest: bar-guy-st . Plural is Barghests.

Blodynbryd: blow-din-brid . Plural is Blodynbryds.

Cait Sidhe: kay-th shee . Plural is Cait Sidhe.

Candela: can-dee-la . Plural is Candela.

Coblynau: cob-lee-now . Plural is Coblynau.

Cu Sidhe: coo shee . Plural is Cu Sidhe.

Daoine Sidhe: doon-ya shee . Plural is Daoine Sidhe, diminutive is Daoine.

Djinn: jin . Plural is Djinn.

Dóchas Sidhe: doe-sh-as shee . Plural is Dóchas Sidhe.

Ellyllon: el-lee-lawn . Plural is Ellyllons.

Gean-Cannah: gee-ann can-na . Plural is Gean-Cannah.

Glastig: glass-tig . Plural is Glastigs.

Gwragen: guh-war-a-gen . Plural is Gwragen.

Hamadryad: ha-ma-dry-add . Plural is Hamadryads.

Hippocampus: hip-po-cam-pus . Plural is Hippocampi.

Kelpie: kel-pee . Plural is Kelpies.

Kitsune: kit-soo-nay . Plural is Kitsune.

Lamia: lay-me-a . Plural is Lamia.

The Luidaeg: the lou-sha-k . No plural exists.

Manticore: man-tee-core . Plural is Manticores.

Naiad: nigh-add . Plural is Naiads.

Nixie: nix-ee . Plural is Nixen.

Peri: pear-ee . Plural is Peri.

Piskie: piss-key . Plural is Piskies.

Pixie: pix-ee . Plural is Pixies.

Puca: puh-ca . Plural is Pucas.

Roane: row-n . Plural is Roane.

Satyr: say-tur . Plural is Satyrs.

Selkie: sell-key . Plural is Selkies.

Shyi Shuai: shh-yee shh-why . Plural is Shyi Shuai.

Silene: sigh-lean . Plural is Silene.

Tuatha de Dannan. tootha day danan . Plural is Tuatha de Dannan, diminutive is Tuatha.

Tylwyth Teg: till-with teeg . Plural is Tylwyth Teg, diminutive is Tylwyth.

Urisk: you-risk . Plural is Urisk.

LIKE MANY PORT TOWNS, San Francisco is a city built on top of its own bones, one where broad modern streets can exist side by side with narrow alleys and abandoned thoroughfares. It’s a lot like Faerie in that regard. Both of them are studies in contradiction, constant wars between the old and the new. I prowled down one of those half-hidden alleys, the sky midnight dark above me and my shoulders hunched against the growing chill. I’m inhuman and borderline indestructible. That doesn’t make me immune to cold—more’s the pity.

I’d been walking down the alleys of the city since a little after ten o’clock, when most of the mortal population was safely inside and the streets informally switched their allegiance to Faerie. The air around me smelled faintly of cut grass and copper, as well as the more normal scents of garbage and decay. The don’t-look-here I had cast over myself was holding, for the moment.

Somewhere in the alleys around me, a tabby tomcat was prowling, and a woman who looked enough like me to be my sister walked shrouded in her own don’t-look-here. Quentin and Raj—my squire and Tybalt’s heir, respectively—were back at the house watching horror movies and pretending not to resent the fact that we wouldn’t let them come along. I’ve dragged Quentin into plenty of dangerous situations, but even I have my limits.

We were hunting for goblin fruit.

It’s a naturally-occurring narcotic in Faerie: sweet purple berries that smell like everything good in the world and give purebloods beautiful dreams. The effect can be concentrated by making the fruit into jam, dark as tar and more dangerous than any mortal drug. What’s just pleasant for purebloods is an unbreakable addiction for humans and changelings—the crossbred children of the fae and human worlds. They waste away on a diet of nothing but sweet fruit and fantasies.

Goblin fruit isn’t illegal. Why should it be? It doesn’t hurt the purebloods who love it, and it’s usually too expensive for changelings to get their hands on—which didn’t explain why the stuff had been appearing on the streets of San Francisco with increasing regularity. My old mentor, Devin, used to control the city’s drug trade. He kept the goblin fruit out . . . at least until he died. It took me too long to realize what a hole his passing would make. In my defense, I was busy trying to keep myself alive.

That excuse wasn’t going to hold much water with the people who were already addicted—or with the ones who were already dead.

Word on the street was that half a dozen local changelings had vanished recently, there one day and gone the next. They hadn’t taken any of their possessions, if they had anything to take; not all changelings did. They hadn’t told their friends where they were going. A few were known criminals—thieves and petty thugs. Others were just kids who’d been bunking in the independent fiefdoms of Golden Gate Park while they tried to figure out what to do with their lives. And then, suddenly, they were just gone.

Changelings are the perfect victims in Faerie. We’re a born underclass, and very few of us have anyone to miss us if we disappear. I might never have heard about the problem at all, if I hadn’t been one of Devin’s kids, once upon a time. A few of my fellow survivors came to me to see if there was anything I could do. I agreed to try. I’d been out on the streets every night for a week doing just that. So far, I’d busted three goblin fruit dealers, stopped a mugging, and stopped for coffee at half the all-night diners in the city. But I hadn’t seen any of the missing changelings. I honestly wasn’t sure whether that was a blessing or a curse.