Seanan McGuire - Ashes of Honor

“I’ll consider it,” said Riordan. Her eyes flicked to Quentin, and she smiled. “Now, if one of you wanted to stay here, and maybe help me make sure I didn’t get distracted…”

Quentin looked alarmed. I cleared my throat. “I’m sorry, but I need my squire with me. He’s got important squire things to do. Part of his training. You understand.”

“Of course,” said Riordan. She didn’t bother to conceal her disappointment. “If there wasn’t anything else, one of my guards has reported a trespasser—not your little girl, this one didn’t leave any gate traces behind—and I should be looking into that. You can leave.” It wasn’t an offer. It was an order.

“Yes, Your Grace,” I said, bowing again. Quentin did the same.

Li Qin…didn’t. She tilted her head to the side, looking at Riordan. Finally, she said, “I understand from April that you did not attend January’s funeral. A pity. It would have been nice to have you there.”

“I didn’t kill her, Li,” said Riordan bluntly. “I didn’t kill her, and I didn’t invade her lands when that little abomination you call a daughter took power. How about you just be glad of that and leave the guilt trips for someone who’s willing to take them?”

“As you like,” said Li Qin, and curtsied. “Your hospitality is impeccable, as always.”

“Yes,” said Riordan. “I know.” She’d followed the rules binding a host to the letter, giving no more than she had to but not withholding anything we could legitimately expect. It was a fine line to walk. She’d walked it without hesitating.

The Folletti whispered back into view around us, five of them this time, their positioning and posture clearly stating that we were supposed to go with them. I nodded one last time to Riordan, whose smile had faded entirely, before I turned to follow the Folletti. None of them said a word, not as we left the throne room and not as they walked us back through the knowe to the cavern where the car was waiting.

Quentin gave me back the keys. I unlocked the door while Li Qin paid our parking fees. Then we all put our human disguises back on, got into the car, and drove away.

NONE OF US SPOKE UNTIL we were past the San Jose city limits. Riordan might not have been spying on us when we were on the way into her Duchy, but there was no way in hell she wasn’t going to be spying on us while we were on the way out. She was too clever, and too paranoid, not to keep an eye on us for as long as she could.

Li Qin turned to me once we were on the freeway. “Did that tell you what you needed to know?”

“Yeah. Riordan’s dangerous because she’s not a crazy bitch. Bitch, yes. Crazy, no.” I sighed. “I think I like it better when they’re nuts. At least then I don’t have to worry about them using actual logic against me.”

“Is she involved?” asked Quentin. “She was sort of creepy, but…”

“Her magic smells like apples and snowdrops. I smelled that combination in the Court of Cats. I don’t think Riordan went there herself—but I think her magic did. Does she know how to make blood charms?”

Li Qin nodded. “Yes. It’s how she sets her wards so firmly.”

“I figured.” Blood charms were a uniquely Daoine Sidhe way of getting around normal rules. Blood carries power; that includes magic, and it’s possible to “loan” or steal magic temporarily if you know how to properly work the blood. Evening Winterrose was always fond of blood charms. If Riordan was the same way, she’d be able to use them to boost her power, borrow abilities from others, and make wards that were both stronger and more specific than anything I could manage. In short, she had a big advantage.

I shook my head, trying to clear the first tinges of fatalism away, and continued, “Also, I never told her Chelsea was a teenager, and I never said which of Chelsea’s parents was human.”

Quentin paused. “What?”

“When I said Chelsea had called home, Riordan asked if she spoke with her human mother . Not ‘human parent.’ She knew which parent would have been there to pick up the phone.”

Silence fell in the car. Finally, Li Qin said, “None of this is proof.”

“See, the nice thing about not being a member of the nobility anymore is that I don’t need proof. I just need to be right. The knowe smelled like Chelsea’s magic; I smelled Riordan’s magic in the Court of Cats; Riordan knew which of her parents was mortal. And there’s more.” I took a breath before launching into a description of the phone call I’d overheard while I was hiding in Riordan’s hall.

When I was done, silence fell again. It lasted longer this time, until Quentin said, “I don’t like her very much.”

“Yeah, well.” I took my left hand off the wheel long enough to rake my hair out of my eyes. “Join the club, okay?”

“No one likes Treasa very much,” said Li Qin. “It’s part of her charm.”

“She has charm?” I asked.

“No,” said Li Qin, and laughed.

I shook my head and hit the gas harder. I wanted to get back to Tamed Lightning. I wanted to be sure Tybalt had been able to get out of Dreamer’s Glass without getting caught. And I wanted a cup of coffee really badly. My priorities may be strange sometimes, but they were good enough to make me drive almost thirty miles over the speed limit all the way to Fremont.

The smell of hydrangeas and black tea rose from Li Qin’s side of the car. I glanced over to see her playing cat’s-cradle with a piece of string, lips moving silently. Whatever she was doing didn’t involve casting a don’t-look-here or a hide-and-seek; I couldn’t feel any illusions on the car. But no one pulled us over, either.

The portcullis was up when we reached ALH. I drove through. Li Qin stopped her cat’s-cradle as the portcullis began to descend, letting her hands drop to her lap with a relieved sigh. I slanted a glance her way. “What was that?”

“I bent our luck. Kept the police from noticing you were speeding, kept any of Riordan’s spies who might have tried to follow from getting close enough to hear what we were saying.” Li Qin smiled a little. “It seemed like the best course of action.”

“Better than a speeding ticket.” I pulled into a space toward the front of the lot, and blinked at the empty sidewalk. “Huh. I expected April to come meet us.”

“She’s probably distracted by the company you sent her.” Li Qin unfastened her seat belt. “Let’s go rescue him.”

“Good idea,” I said, and followed her, with Quentin at my heels.

We walked through the reception area into the knowe and were starting to make our way through the cubicle maze when I heard voices up ahead. “Déjà vu,” I muttered. Voices in the cubicle maze greeted me when I first came to ALH. Li Qin looked pleased and started walking faster, making me and Quentin pick up the pace if we wanted to keep up with her. For someone short, she sure could move.

April turned as we came around the corner into the cube maze’s central meeting point, a quizzical expression on her face. Tybalt, who was sitting on the edge of the desk she’d been facing, didn’t rise. He just looked toward us and smiled.

I let out a breath I hadn’t been quite aware of holding, some of the tension slipping out of my shoulders. “Is there coffee?” I asked.

“Hello to you as well, October. You’re looking lovely, or at least not incarcerated, which is a definite pleasure, given where I left you.” Tybalt waved a hand toward April. “Countess O’Leary was explaining the functionality of her server systems to me. Fascinating stuff.”

It says something about how much practice Tybalt has had in the art of sounding interested when he isn’t that I didn’t realize he was kidding until he winked at me. “No arrests,” I said. “Riordan is involved in Chelsea’s disappearance, even though I don’t have any way to prove it to someone who could make her give Chelsea back. Now. Coffee, and then we have to hit the road.”