Seanan McGuire - Ashes of Honor

“I intend to keep saying it until you start to listen. You. Should. Be. Dead.” Jin looked over her shoulder, calling, “She’s awake, and there’s nothing I can do to make her less stupid. You can come in now.”

Tybalt was the first into the room, with Quentin close on his heels. I expected May to be right behind them. I was wrong. Instead, Li Qin sauntered in, an In-and-Out Burger takeout bag dangling from one hand. She held it up while Tybalt and Quentin bent to crush me from either side in an exuberant hug and asked, “Hungry?”

As if on cue, I was suddenly starving. “Yes,” I said, sitting up farther and freeing one arm to reach for the bag. “What are you doing here? Where did these lights come from?”

“Ah. You see, the regent of Dreamer’s Glass has disappeared under mysterious circumstances, and the nobles she shares a border with were concerned, especially since she left no named heir. So Tamed Lightning decided to occupy her fiefdom. Just in case people get ideas they shouldn’t.” Li Qin’s smile was surprisingly predatory as she gave me the bag. “Naturally, if she fails to return, we’ll be claiming the regency. It’s only fair, considering we’ll be expending resources in her defense.”

“And the lights…?” I opened the bag, grabbed the first burger, unwrapped it, and crammed about a quarter of it into my mouth. Calories. Thank Maeve.

“Home Depot, with one of April’s Summerlands-compatible batteries powering them.” Li Qin’s smile died as quickly as it had come. That was good. It had been starting to creep me out. “We have a problem.”

I swallowed. “Don’t we always? What is it this time?”

“Chelsea,” said Tybalt, pulling away from me. His voice was grim. I looked toward him. He met my eyes, shaking his head. “She’s still bouncing, and she’s speeding up. Etienne is following her, and she’s managed to stay out of Annwn so far, but I don’t know how long he can keep up—and I don’t know what’s going to happen when he loses her.”

I winced. “Oh, Oberon’s eyes. Did you try catching them?”

“In between running for your doctor and your Fetch? Yes.” A humorless smile crossed Tybalt’s face. “I once thought myself a King of infinite space. It seems a Tuatha in panicked pursuit of his daughter can put a girdle ’round the earth in forty minutes.”

“Okay, points for the Shakespeare references, but you lose some for mixing your plays.” I pushed Quentin gently away and levered myself to my feet, noting the way my head spun as I stood. That was a combination of vertigo and needing to eat more of the burgers Li Qin had so thoughtfully provided. “We need to find them. We need to stop her before she damages something we can’t repair.”

“How are you planning to do that?” asked May. “I mean, they were moving pretty fast the last time we saw them. It’s not like you’ll have time to string a net.”

“It’s not like we’re going to need to.” I took another bite of burger, swallowing it without really tasting it before I said, “Chelsea herself said that she kept cycling back to places she’d already been, like she couldn’t help opening those doors over and over. Riordan was using blood magic. I have the charm she was using. We can get Chelsea to come here.”

“How are you going to stop her?” asked May.

I stuck my free hand into the pocket of my leather jacket—now in need of a serious cleaning—and produced the baggie holding Walther’s jar of power-dampening solution. “I’m going to hit her with a guaranteed stop sign. And then I’m going to give her the Changeling’s Choice, whether she wants to take it or not.”

May’s eyes widened. Then her expression softened, with a mixture of sorrow and understanding. “Toby, I’m sorry.”

She wasn’t sorry because I had to give the Choice to Chelsea. She was sorry because the only other person I’d given the Choice to was my own daughter…and Gillian Chose human. I shook my head. “We knew this was coming. I just hope I’m up to it. Tybalt, Quentin, I want you with me in case something goes wrong.”

“I’m coming, too,” said May. I raised an eyebrow. She shrugged. “I am indestructible. You just think you are. I figure I’ll jump in front of the next thing that tries to rip your guts out.”

“You’ll need me to bend the luck,” said Li. “Successfully using someone else’s blood charm is unlikely under the best of circumstances. Without me, you won’t have the best of circumstances.”

I gave her a sidelong look. “There’s something you aren’t telling us about how your magic works. Otherwise, why would anything ever go wrong for the people around you?” Why would your wife have died?

Li Qin hesitated before admitting, in a smaller voice, “There may be a reason you’ve had quite so many life-threatening injuries since we met.”

“And here I thought she was finally living up to her potential,” said Quentin.

“I have the power to ground you, you know,” I said. He grinned at me. I shook my head and focused on Li Qin. “So the luck you bend, you have to take it from somewhere? And that means what, that we wind up with little pockets of bad luck waiting for us?”

“Sometimes the bad hits before the good, but yes, essentially,” said Li Qin.

I only had to think about what she was saying for a second. “Works for me,” I said. “Come on, all of you. And Li—this is the last time I want you twisting our luck around, okay? We get Chelsea home, and then you let us take our chances with normal probability.”

“Absolutely,” said Li Qin, looking relieved.

“Great. Let’s go.”

We walked down the dimly lit halls of Riordan’s knowe in silence, me too busy cramming burgers into my mouth to say anything, and the others holding their peace for reasons of their own. Tybalt paced next to me, eyes fixed forward. I gave him a sidelong glance and reached over to take his hand. He shot me a startled look. I smiled. After a moment, he smiled back.

Riordan’s throne room looked like the scene of a war. In a way, I suppose it was. The tapestries had been ripped from the walls by a strong wind, and there were charred spots on the walls. A patch of the marble floor looked like it had been bleached white. I paused, reaching down to touch the stone, and yelped as I lost a layer of skin to the freezing chill.

“She’s hitting the Snow Kingdoms, too,” I said, straightening up. “On the plus side, we know she’s cycling through here.”

“Accompanied by lava flow, blizzards, and Maeve knows what else,” said Tybalt dryly. “Oh, yes, this is a definite plus.”

“I’m taking my good things where I can get them right now,” I said, and I stuck my frostbitten hand into the In-and-Out bag to grab the last burger. The spinning feeling in my head was almost gone. “Quentin, May, I want you on the other side of the room. Li, take the floor in front of the throne. Tybalt and I will wait here.”

May frowned. “And you’re splitting the party Scooby Doo-style exactly why?”

“Because when Chelsea comes through here, we need to be ready to tackle her and pin her down long enough for one of us to douse her in power dampener. Quentin has a dose; so do I. Tybalt can cross the distance to Li Qin if he needs to—”

“—but my luck manipulation means that wherever I’m standing in the room is where Chelsea is least likely to appear, which is why I’m by myself,” said Li. She glanced at me. “Am I close?”

“Yeah, but you’re also standing by yourself because I’m annoyed at you for getting me disemboweled. Twice. I’d managed to go my whole life without having someone stick their hands inside me, and I was planning to keep it that way.”