Seanan McGuire - Ashes of Honor

“It’s kind of a long story. Can we come inside?”

April nodded. “Of course.”

Quentin glanced at me. I shrugged. Apparently, April wasn’t planning to introduce her friend. The polite thing to do would have been to ignore the other woman until she was identified or chose to identify herself.

I’ve never been good at polite. “Hi,” I said, offering her my hand. “I’m October Daye, and this is my squire, Quentin. Sorry if we interrupted your meeting.”

“You interrupted nothing of any import, I assure you; just a tour.” She took my hand, shook once, and let go. “Li Qin Zhou. It is a pleasure.”

“Hi,” said Quentin.

Li Qin looked like she belonged at Tamed Lightning. She was wearing gray slacks and a white cotton tank top, with plastic flip-flops that showed off her electric green pedicure. She looked back and forth between us, still smiling. “The timing is fortuitous; I was hoping to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you. I apologize for not creating the opportunity before. I’ve been traveling, and I’ve only just returned to California.”

“Business? Pleasure?”

“Mourning,” she said. A flicker of pain crossed her face. “My wife died. I wasn’t there. I needed some time to put my world back together before I could come home.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, the words feeling lame in my mouth. “How long ago?” I might not know what this woman was, but I knew she was pureblooded; there was nothing human about her. If I breathed deeply enough, I could taste the undiluted black tea and white hydrangea ghost of her magic. Purebloods measure time differently than changelings and humans do. Li Qin could easily have been mourning someone who had died a century before.

“Two years next week,” she said, and smiled again. “But that’s not why you’re here.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said. Turning to April, I asked, “Can we go inside? We’re here on a case, and I need to bring you up to speed.”

“Certainly.” April cocked her head, looking as if she were listening to something I couldn’t hear. April is the eyes and ears of her fiefdom; if she looked like she was listening to something, that’s because she almost certainly was. She blinked and straightened up again. “Alex is the only one in the building, and he is occupied with hardware restoration in the main server room. We should be undisturbed in the main cafeteria. Li can take you.” With that, she was gone, leaving the scent of ozone hanging in the air.

“I still hate it when she does that,” said Quentin.

Li Qin laughed. “Follow me,” she said, and waved for us to accompany her into the building.

As always, access to the fae side of Tamed Lightning involved going through the over-refrigerated reception area and from there to the labyrinthine maze of cubicles that served as the company’s primary workspace. Being staffed entirely by fae meant the middle of the day was a dead time, and we walked through a tomb that would become a thriving business when the sun went down.

Li Qin walked as if she knew where she was going, not hesitating as she led us through the maze and out the door on the far side, to the lawn that stretched between the company’s two main buildings. We had crossed into the Summerlands when we entered the reception area, and we had left the mortal daylight behind; when we stepped outside, we were greeted not by sunlight, but by the clear bright glow of three full moons and countless silvered stars. It’s always twilight trending into nighttime in the Summerlands.

“So have you known April long?” asked Quentin, filling the silence with words. That’s a habit he’s picked up from me. He was a lot more stoic when we first met.

“Yes,” said Li Qin. “Inasmuch as it matters, you could say I’ve known her all her life.”

“She’s a good kid,” I said. I took a peek into my pocket as we walked across the lawn, checking the Luidaeg’s charm. It was glowing passive white. Wherever Chelsea was, it wasn’t nearby. “She’s done a pretty good job with this County.”

“She has. Jan would be proud of her.” Li Qin pushed open the door into the next building, holding it as Quentin and I walked past her. “April has been a fantastic Countess. I always knew she would be, given the opportunity.”

“I appreciate your faith.” Somehow, it wasn’t surprising to hear April’s voice coming from behind us.

“What did I say about sneaking up on people?” asked Li Qin.

“That I should do it only when it was funny.” There was a faint inrush of air as April vanished, reappearing in the hall about six feet ahead of our little group. She turned to me. “I have started a fresh pot of coffee. I remember that this is essential to your normal operations.”

“I love you right now,” I said gravely.

April smiled.

Five minutes later, the four of us were settled in the cafeteria, Quentin with a can of Dr Pepper and a platter of sandwiches from the vending machine, me with an entire pot of coffee that I didn’t have to share. Li Qin was making tea on the other side of the room when April looked at me, cocking her head to the side again, and asked, “So what is going on?”

One of the nice things about dealing with April is her lack of subtlety. There was no need to beat around the bush with her. “We have a missing half-Tuatha changeling. The last sign we had of where she might be going put her somewhere in this area. You’re the only teleporter I know who lives out here, and I was hoping you might help us.”

“Ah.” April frowned. “Why is it vital she be found? Perhaps she has simply taken a vacation.”

“That seems unlikely, since she’s ripping holes in the fabric of Faerie. She’s gating all the way into the sealed lands, and that’s not good.”

There was a clanging sound from the other side of the cafeteria. We turned to see Li Qin staring at us, the teapot lying at her feet in a spreading pool of liquid. Quentin and I stared at her. She stared back. Finally, slowly, she said, “You have to find her. You have to find her now .”

“Yeah, we know,” I said. “That’s why we’re here. She—”

“You don’t understand,” Li Qin interrupted. “The shallowing has been unstable all day. I thought it was being cranky. I didn’t know someone was actively undermining reality. If you don’t find her, if you don’t stop her, knowes are going to start collapsing…and they’re going to start collapsing soon.”

“Oh,” said Quentin faintly. “That’s new.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “That’s very new.”

Crap.

LI QIN TOOK A BREATH, composing herself. “This isn’t new,” she said. “This is old. This goes all the way back to when Faerie was first setting roots into the mortal world.”

I frowned a little. “Sorry, but I have no idea what that means. I skipped my remedial Fairyland history classes.”

“I see why Jan liked you.” Li Qin picked up her teapot. She set it on the counter and reached for a towel. “The Summerlands are the only realm of Faerie directly connected to the mortal world. That’s why all knowes are anchored there. It’s like building houses by digging holes in the skin of an orange—they touch on both the orange and the air, but are really suspended between them, fully part of neither. Do you understand?”

“No,” I said.

Quentin shook his head. “My theory lessons haven’t gotten that far yet.”

“All right, then, to put it more simply: knowes and shallowings exist because the Summerlands are connected to the mortal world. Normally, teleporters move through the space between the anchors, and that makes the ties between worlds stronger by making the open spaces part of the binding. Like a spider weaving a web around a few solid sticks. A teleporter who’s ripping through, on the other hand…” Li Qin knelt, beginning to wipe up her spill. “She’s forcing her way through the places where the worlds are directly connected, and that can damage the connections. A knowe can exist severed from one world, provided it has a sufficiently large foundation in the other. A knowe severed from both worlds will crumble, and anyone inside will be lost forever.”