Seanan McGuire - Ashes of Honor

For Deborah,

and all the red-cloaked girls

who ever left the safest path.

Book six. Wow. Ashes of Honor has been a delight every step along the way, and a lot of that is due to the people who were there to help me with the process of making it the best book it could be. My first and deepest thanks go to the ever-changing membership of the Machete Squad, whose keen eyes and keener pens have forced me to keep improving, whether I wanted to or not. Special thanks to Michelle Dockrey, Amy McNally, Brooke Lunderville, my mom and sister, and Amy’s friend Patty, who tolerated Toby’s intrusions on our trip to Disney World. I couldn’t have done it without you guys.

My solemn gratitude goes to my agent, Diana Fox, my editor, Sheila Gilbert, my cover artist, Chris McGrath, and my website design and maintenance team of Tara O’Shea and Christopher Mangum. Thanks also to Joshua Starr, for administrative awesome on the DAW side, and to Deborah Brannon, for administrative awesome here at home.

Thank you to you, for coming with me this far, for reading, for being a part of this adventure. It has been, and will continue to be, amazing. I’m so glad you’re here.

My soundtrack while writing Ashes of Honor consisted mostly of Little Blue Egg , by Dave and Tracy, Ceremonials , by Florence and the Machine, Queen of Spindles , by Talis Kimberley, endless live concert recordings of the Counting Crows, and Enchant , by Emilie Autumn. 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.

Thank you for reading. Welcome back to Faerie.

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

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.

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.

Undine: un-deen . Plural is Undine.

Urisk: you-risk . Plural is Urisk.

THE NIGHT SKY OVER SAN FRANCISCO was a patchwork mixture of starry black and cloudy gray, all of it washed out by the ambient light drifting up from the city below. It was a tourist’s dream of California summer, perfect as a postcard—and like all postcards, it wasn’t telling the full story. I pressed myself in closer to the wall of the alley, one hand on my knife, and waited.

I didn’t have to wait for long. Voices drifted down the alley, speaking in the weird mix of whisper and shout that teenagers have used since the dawn of time when trying to be subtle. There was nothing subtle about these kids, but they would never have believed that. They were playing things oh-so-cool, and they thought they were untouchable. In a perfect world, they would have been. In a perfect world, they would have been allowed to have their little rebellions and take their little risks, and nothing would ever have touched them.

We don’t live in a perfect world. We never have. And on nights like this one, it seems like we never will.

The kids approaching my hiding spot didn’t know it, but I’d been watching them for weeks, ever since I took a trip downtown to investigate reports of a courtier selling pieces of his liege’s treasury. The rumors turned out to be true—he got banished, I got paid, and nobody walked away happy—but that wasn’t the worst of it.

On the way to a meeting with his fence, the courtier had kicked aside a glass jar that someone had left discarded near the base of a garbage can. It fell on its side and rolled to a stop against a nearby wall. The smell of its contents assaulted my nostrils, and I immediately forgot about my job. I had something far more dangerous to worry about.

I crept toward the jar as cautiously as I would have approached a venomous snake, finally crouching a few feet away. I could see smears of purple clinging to the glass—not that I needed the visual. This close, the smell was unmistakable. No changeling who’s ever lived on the wrong side of the tracks could fail to recognize the smell of goblin fruit, even if we’d never smelled it before. And, Oberon help me, I’d smelled it before.

Goblin fruit grows naturally in some realms of Faerie. It’s a sweet narcotic for purebloods, intoxicating without being physically addictive—although it’s definitely habit-forming. Anything that changes the way you feel is habit-forming, as anyone who’s ever dealt with someone who says, “It’s not addictive, really,” while reaching for their next fix can tell you. A pureblood with a serious goblin-fruit problem may spend a lot of time high, but that’s about it. They’ll still be able to do their jobs, maintain relationships, and put up a good front.

Changelings and humans have a different reaction. For us, goblin fruit creates a level of addiction that no mortal drug can match. People try to dilute it or cut it with other fruits—hence the ever popular use of jam as a delivery mechanism—but the end result is always the same: dependency leads to craving, craving leads to madness, and madness leads, inexorably, to death.

Devin never allowed goblin fruit at Home. We had kids who were hooked on just about every conceivable chemical, from pot and pills to cocaine, heroin, and things they mixed up in the back room. Some kids got high huffing concentrated pixie-sweat, or smoking Dryad leaves. Devin viewed it all with benevolent indifference—he didn’t care what we put into our bodies, as long as we were able to do our jobs. But he had a zero-tolerance policy for goblin fruit. Any kid who showed up with sticky fingers and starry eyes was booted, no second chances, because he knew better than any of us that once the fruit had hold of you, it never let you go.