Eight
“WHOA, WHOA, HOLD ON,” said Chelsea, as I moved to open the sitting-room door. “You’re making some pretty big leaps right now, and I’d really like to know where you’re expecting to land before I just go along with all of this.”
“Look,” I said. “Raysel’s magic comes into this room, but it doesn’t go out of it again, and there’s no flare to mark her using some sort of teleportation magic.
Quentin’s magic does the same thing, because he came in and then you portaled him out.
But the moment where his magic disappears is marked by yours getting stronger.
That’s also how I can tell how many times you came and went without using the door.
So Raysel came in here, stayed in here, and then was transported out of here by someone else.
I can’t find any traces of the other Tuatha in the knowe, or of any of the Cait Sidhe.
So she wasn’t portaled, and she wasn’t taken out via the Shadow Roads. ”
“And how does that lead you to Duchess Torquill, exactly?”
I stepped into the hall, trusting her and Quentin to keep following me. “You weren’t around yet when we fought Blind Michael. Luna’s his daughter, and as a Blodynbryd, she has access to one of the Roads.”
“The what?”
“The Roads,” I repeated. “Like the Shadow Roads the Cait Sidhe use to get around. The Blodynbryd have the Rose Roads, and they can use it to travel quickly. It connects to Blind Michael’s realm.”
“He’s dead, though,” said Chelsea, sounding uncertain.
“He is,” I assured her. “But his widow, Acacia, still holds the skerry. You know, Luna’s mother? Any roads that led there while he was alive will still get you there.”
Tybalt was coming down the corridor toward us, Dean following close behind. I waved them over, then turned to Chelsea.
“Luna as good as threatened to do this when we talked to her before,” I said.
“Queen Windermere didn’t go the way she wanted her to, and so she’s grabbed her daughter and taken her someplace where none of the kings and queens we have access to will have any authority.
” That wasn’t entirely true: we had access to Oberon.
Oberon, the King of All Faerie, had authority in Blind Michael’s lands, no matter how far removed they were from the known kingdoms. He’d be able to order Acacia to give Raysel back to us.
And if it came to that, I would march him there myself and make him give the order. He owed me that much by this point.
“What’s going on?” asked Dean, as they drew closer.
“Toby thinks the Duchess Torquill snatched Raysel,” said Quentin grimly.
Dean didn’t look surprised by this, only nodded and moved to stand next to his boyfriend. “I wouldn’t put it past her,” he said. “Ray’s scared witless of her mother. My mom’s scary on purpose, and I can’t imagine being that afraid of her.”
“I can,” muttered Quentin.
“Dianda would drown before she’d lay a hand on any one of you when you didn’t want her to,” I said. “Luna’s crossing lines.”
“Are you sure?” asked Tybalt.
“Raysel’s gone, the magic traces match with her having been removed from the room by magical means, and there’s a puddle of sap on the table that doesn’t have any rational source,” I said. “Unless someone who bled like an injured tree lost it there, that is.”
“I see,” he said, impassively. Then: “I found most of the people you asked me to look for. None of them were visibly injured, although Sylvester seemed quite distressed by the absence of his wife. I am no Adhene, to pull lies from out the air, but I know him well enough to be quite sure he was speaking truly in his upset. He doesn’t know where she is, or he didn’t, anyway. ”
“That’s a relief,” I said. “If Luna acted alone, we might still be able to salvage this.”
“What, exactly, do you think happened?”
“I think Luna saw an opportunity to catch Raysel alone, grabbed her, and pulled her onto the Rose Roads. She’ll be halfway to her father’s skerry by now, and think she’s entirely out of reach.”
“October, the Rose Road is—”
“Pretty much inaccessible if you’re not Blodynbryd. I know.” I looked at him coolly.
After a moment, he sighed and looked away.
“I need to find Queen Windermere,” I said, barely catching myself before I used her first name.
We were technically in public right now, since this was an open hall, and while it wasn’t likely, any one of the newcomers I’d noticed could claim offense against me for using the Queen’s proper name when they didn’t think I’d earned the right.
They were unlikely to succeed, but even being able to make the attempt would be a complication that I didn’t need right now.
I turned and walked briskly down the hall, my little entourage at my heels. We were an odd group, two Daoine Sidhe, a Tuatha, a Cait Sidhe, and me. People turned as we emerged from the hall, watching us make our way across the receiving room.
Court had yet to be called back to order, but Arden and Nolan were on the dais, perched on their respective thrones with plates of food on their knees.
Arden stood when she saw us approaching, setting her plate aside and glancing quickly over the group behind me, looking for a head of bright red hair.
When she didn’t find it, she looked back to my face, raising her eyebrows in silent question.
I shook my head. “She’s not here,” I said, once I was close enough to be heard.
“I need to go. Quentin can get my car out of here, but I needed to tell you first, so you didn’t think I was running out on you for no good reason.
Tybalt will be going with me, but Ginevra’s here as a representative of the Court of Cats. ”
“Of course,” she said. “Whatever you require.”
“If it’s whatever I require, can you keep an eye on Duke Torquill?” I asked. “I don’t think he knows what’s going on, but he’s going to be upset when he finds out, and I’d rather he had someone watching out for him when that happens.”
“Of course, Sir Daye,” said Arden, much more formally this time. “Please, come back and inform us when you have your answers.”
“I will,” I said. “I promise.” I bowed, shallow and stiff, and she waved me off, dismissing me.
That was all I’d been waiting for. I turned, hurrying toward the exit, Tybalt staying stubbornly beside me. The others trailed along behind, and when we reached the door I paused, digging out my keys and tossing them gently to Quentin, who plucked them out of the air with ease.
“Get the car home,” I said. “And then, please, stay there. I may need you later. You can take Dean back to Goldengreen first if you need to, but I want you to be where I can find you.”
Quentin looked at me, mulish. “I’m your squire. I’m supposed to be where you are.”
“Yes, most of the time,” I agreed. “But right now, I have actual reasons for wanting you at the house. And it’s not just because I’ll be taking Tybalt with me, and we need someone to help May with Miranda. Please?”
Quentin sighed, scrubbing at his face with the hand that wasn’t full of keys. “Invoking Miranda is mean,” he complained.
“But honest,” I said.
“Fine, then,” he said, and sighed. “I’ll drive Dean back to Goldengreen when he’s ready to go, and then I’ll go home so May can have a shower. And I’ll tell her where you are.”
“Best of squires,” I said, warmly. “Favorite son.”
“Only squire, now that Raj is busy being a king-in-training most of the time,” he said, sounding only faintly amused. “Only son.”
I ignored him, turning my attention to Chelsea. “Chels…”
“No,” she said, immediately. “Don’t even start.”
“You don’t know what I was going to say.”
“You were going to tell me I had to stay here so you could go off and rescue my girlfriend. Well, she’s my girlfriend, and I’m not staying here.”
“If she is where I think she is, she’s in a very dangerous place,” I said. “I need to not be worrying about you while I’m trying to get her back. She needs to not be worrying about you.”
Chelsea’s eyes narrowed. “That’s low, Daye.”
“Maybe so, but it’s what I’ve got,” I said. “I’ve been there before, I have a pretty decent idea of how to carry myself, and I’m not happy. I definitely don’t want any of you there.”
“I don’t like this.”
“I don’t care.” I shrugged. “I need to focus on getting Raysel back, not on worrying about whether or not you’re going to get lost forever in the space between here and the skerry.”
“I could just portal us there.”
“No, you couldn’t.” Chelsea shot Tybalt a scandalized look.
He shrugged. “When your powers first manifested, they were so uncontrolled that you could cross borders that the Tuatha were not meant to cross. That was how you were able to penetrate deeper Faerie. Since they’ve stabilized, you haven’t shown any signs of still being able to do that.
Can you? Do you truly trust your magic to rip a hole in the walls between worlds without bringing all creation crashing down upon our heads? Do you trust it with Raysel’s life?”
Chelsea wilted slightly. I understood her disappointment.
She still had one of the widest documented ranges of any Tuatha de Dannan; she could open portals across hundreds of miles, while some Tuatha struggled to manage more than one or two.
But once, she’d been strong enough to travel to places that had literally been sealed by Oberon himself.
I’d been key in reducing her power to something that she could survive, rebalancing her blood to remove her mortality and allow the natural checks and balances of her Tuatha heritage to assert themselves.
It had been the right thing to do. I still felt bad about it, watching her look down at the floor and try to accept the reality of her situation.
Glancing back up at me, she said, “And you’ll bring her back? You won’t hurt her?”
“She didn’t go intentionally, unless she’s been fooling us all really, really well for a long time now,” I said. “I just want to make sure she’ll be safe. I’m going to bring her home.”
“All right,” said Chelsea, subdued. She moved closer to Dean, who put an arm around her shoulders, comforting her.