An Artificial Night - BK 3 (9 page)

Lily’s hand reached across the table and grasped my chin, turning me to face her. Her eyes seemed darker, less like eyes and more like pools of water. “It’s time to go,” she said. “I’m sorry, but the leaves have spoken. He’s too close for the safety of me or mine.”

“Lily, what—” Tybalt began. Lily shot him a sharp look and he quieted.

“You have business to conduct, both of you, although the weight of it stands on Amandine’s daughter,” she said. “You must speak to the moon, October. Leave the girl in my keeping. Perhaps I can wake her, perhaps not, but she’ll be safer with me than she could be on the road with you.”

“But—”

This time the sharp look was for me. “You know there are things I can’t discuss. I’m sorry they touch on your affairs. I can tell you this much only: you must ask the moon, for you’ll find no answers here, and you must leave the girl behind.”

“I can’t just leave her!” I protested. “Her parents trusted me with her.”

“Have you had an unexpected visitor?” she asked. I froze. She continued, “One who belongs to your line even as mistletoe belongs to the oak? You can’t lie to me. I know you.”

“How . . . ?” I whispered. Tybalt was frowning, but I didn’t care. If Lily knew about my Fetch, what else did she know?

Her smile was sad. “There are always ripples on the water. Some of us just watch them more closely. Leave the child and go. You have miles yet to travel on this road.”

“Lily, I—”

“There’s nothing else to say. You will go on your errand, and Tybalt’s, and all the others who haven’t time to reach you. You will go, because you must. Go
now,
October.” She looked at the mess on the table. “You have little enough time to find your way. Go.”

I stood. “You’re not telling me anything else, are you?”

“There’s nothing else to tell.” She crossed to Karen, picked up my clothes, and offered them to me. “You may keep the gown. It suits you.”

“Guess I don’t have time to change.” I took the bundle. “How do we get out of here?”

“Leave the pavilion and turn right.”

“Got it.” I turned to walk away. Spike leaped off of Karen, following at my heels, with Tybalt just a few feet behind, his footsteps silent on the pavilion floor. It was oddly comforting not to be leaving alone.

There was a moment of disorientation as we stepped down from the pavilion to the mossy ground. The landscape fell into place around us and we were back in the Japanese Tea Gardens, standing outside a door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. There was a tingle in the air and the smell of jasmine tea. I reached up and touched one ear, feeling the illusion-rounded angle of it.

“Isn’t this fun,” I said, darkly. I realize most purebloods have absolute control within their knowes, but that doesn’t mean I need illustrated examples. I can’t
stand
other people throwing my illusions on for me. It makes my ears itch. Area illusions like Tybalt’s don’tlook-here were annoying enough, and they didn’t actually touch my skin.

“You look very nice,” said Tybalt.

I eyed him, unwrapping his jacket—unwrapping
my
jacket—from around the bundle of clothes and shrugging it on. The battered leather made an odd contrast against the formal silk gown. I didn’t much care. “I look like a geisha.”

A small smile tugged at his lips. “As I said, you look very nice.”

“Uh-huh.” I snorted and turned to head for the exit. Looking amused, Tybalt followed. The second time I tripped on the hem of my dress, he reached over and took the bundle of clothes from my hands. I blinked, but didn’t say anything.

Neither did he, until we were almost to my car. When he did speak, his voice was uncharacteristically soft. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“What?” I glanced toward him.

“I said, I didn’t mean to upset you. I didn’t realize my absence would be a problem.” His smile widened slightly. “It seemed you were eternally trying to be rid of me.”

“Yeah, well.” I stopped next to the car, taking my clothes out of his hands. “I guess I wasn’t expecting it to be quite that abrupt. Did I piss you off?”

“Piss me off? No. You didn’t. I’ve been . . .” He paused, sighing. “I’ve been looking for someone. There are questions that trouble me and I’d like to find some answers.”

“Anything I can help with?”

The question was casual; his response was anything but. Going still as a cat stalking a mouse, he studied my face, eyes darting back and forth as he considered me. Finally, almost wonderingly, he said, “No. No, I don’t think it is.” He looked oddly relieved. “My apologies for my absence. Clearly, you’ve been lost without me.”

I blinked, digging my keys out of the pocket of my jeans and checking the backseat for intruders before unlocking the car door. “You’re very strange, Tybalt,” I said. “But I guess I knew that. Do you need a lift anywhere?”

He paused, looking thoughtful. “What did Lily mean? The mistletoe and the oak?”

In for a penny, in for a pound. If he was trusting me to find his Court’s missing children, I might as well trust him with the realities of the situation. Squaring my shoulders, I met his eyes and said, “My Fetch showed up this morning.”

“Ah,” he said, softly. “I should have known it would be something of the sort.” Before I had a chance to react, he stepped forward, kissing me on the forehead. “I have to return to my Court and let the parents of the missing ones know that you’ve agreed. I’ll come to you later.”

I stared at him, stunned. “What . . . ?”

“Open roads, Toby. Find our children.” He hesitated like he was about to say something else, but he didn’t; he just turned and walked to the edge of the parking lot.

“What . . . ?” I repeated, standing there with my keys dangling in my hand.

Looking back over his shoulder, he smiled, almost shyly, stepped into the shadows, and was gone.

“This is officially getting strange,” I said, as much to hear my own voice as anything else. Missing children, a Fetch on my doorstep, Lily being freaky, and now Tybalt was deciding to redefine “acting weird”? The day wasn’t getting any better. I got into the car and started the engine.

I needed coffee, and I needed it now.

I
ARRIVED HOME HALF AN HOUR and a McDonald’s drive-through later, with most of an extra-large coffee doing its best to settle my stomach. It was failing. The failure became more profound as I approached the apartment and got my first look at the front porch. Quentin was sitting there with his arms wrapped around his legs and his chin resting on his knees, looking for all the world like an enormous kicked puppy.

At least he’d had the sense to put on a human disguise, blunting the points of his ears and making his features a little more believably attractive. Daoine Sidhe are gorgeous, but it’s not a human beauty. With the disguise, he could have been a teen idol; without it, he would have started riots. He was wearing blue jeans and a black T-shirt that proclaimed YOU’RE JUST JEALOUS BECAUSE THE VOICES TALK TO ME. It didn’t look like his corn silk-blond hair had been combed in days, and one of his sneakers was untied.

The only time I’d ever seen him look that untidy was right after he’d been shot. Something was wrong.

He scrambled to his feet when he saw me, almost stumbling over his shoelaces. “Toby,” he said, voice cracking. “I—”

Loose lips sink ships and panicked kids say things they shouldn’t. I live in a decent area, but I have neighbors and neighbors hear things. “Wait until we’re inside. You want to get the door?” I tossed him the house keys, getting a better grip on both my bundle of clothes and my skirt in the process. “I do
not
like walking in this thing.”

“So why are you wearing it?” He caught the keys, frowning quizzically.

“It’s a long story.” I snapped my fingers, muttering a quick snatch of “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” The wards around the doorframe flared red and released. “Just open the door.”

Lucky for me, that boy has been schooled in obedience since the day he was born. He shrugged and turned, unlocking the door. His courtly manners even carried over into holding it open for me before he followed me inside, where he collapsed onto the couch and dropped his head into his hands. I had to admire that—like most teenagers, regardless of breed, he had an almost instinctive grasp of the theatrical.

“Tie your shoes,” I said, dropping my bundle of clothes on the bookshelf before locking the door and turning to head for the kitchen. I needed to make a pot of coffee. He’d talk when he was ready, and most of my cheap fast food coffee was long-since gone.

I was filling the filter when he said, tentatively, “Toby?”

Jackpot. “Yeah?” I turned. He was standing in the kitchen doorway. “You going to tell me why you were camping on my porch?”

“Katie’s gone.”

I put the filter down. “You want to try that again?”

“Katie’s gone. She disappeared this morning.”

The name was familiar, it just took a moment to figure out who he meant. Oh, no. “Your human girlfriend.” He nodded. There was a sudden sinking feeling in my stomach.
Please let him be here to tell me they broke up . . .
“When you say gone, what do you mean exactly?”

“I don’t know. Away.” He looked down at the floor, continuing in a monotone, “She didn’t come to school this morning.”

It’s getting harder for the purebloods to pretend that the mortal world doesn’t matter, so they’ve started sending their kids to school—human school. Call it the hot new way to play faerie bride. I’m not sure what I think of the idea of a bunch of pureblood kids getting the human childhood I never had, but my opinion won’t reverse the trend. Quentin was in his second year at the human high school near Paso Nogal, and he was doing surprisingly well, all things considered.

I leaned against the counter. “She could be sick. Humans get sick.”

“I know that,” Quentin said defensively. “I went to her house at lunch to check on her.”

“And she wasn’t there?”

“No. Her mom said Katie was gone when she got up. She didn’t take her shoes or her bag or anything.” He swallowed hard before continuing, “I asked if I could look around her room to see if she left a note or something. You know. Investigating, like at ALH.”

“That was clever of you.” The sinking feeling in my stomach was getting worse. “What did you find?”

“No note,” Quentin said. “But . . .” He paused. “Don’t laugh, okay?”

“I won’t laugh,” I said quietly. Somehow, laughter was the last thing on my mind.

“The air in her room tasted funny. Like . . . well, like blood.”

“And candle wax,” I muttered.

“What?”

“Nothing. Did you touch the windows?”

He frowned. “Of course not. Why would I touch the windows?”

I held up my hands. Lily did a good job, but I could still feel the burning if I thought about it too hard. “I don’t know. But if you had, you’d probably be in a world of pain.”

“What are you
talking
about?”

“Finish your story, then I’ll tell you mine.” He eyed me, and I added, “Promise.”

“All right.” He sighed. “Her mom came in and said I needed to leave. She was pretty worried.” He bit his lip. “So am I.”

“Understandably.” I picked up the filter and slotted it into place, then turned on the coffee maker. I needed more caffeine before I tried to deal with any more of this.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on now?”

“I probably should,” I said, and sighed. “Come on.” I pushed past him into the living room, not waiting to see if he was following; it’s not that big of an apartment. I sat on the end of the couch, tugging the hem of my skirt until it was even.

Quentin followed, sitting on the other end of the couch. Spike leaped into his lap, and he started scratching the rose goblin behind the ears. “Why would the windows hurt me?”

“Because Katie’s not the only one that’s gone,” I said. “Stacy Brown called this morning because her two youngest children were missing. When I searched their rooms, I found the same scents you found in Katie’s. I’ve also spoken to Tybalt, and he says five children disappeared from his Court last night.”

“Same smell?”

“Same smell,” I said. “I touched a window when I was following the scent trail. It burned my hands.”

“But they don’t look—”

“Lily healed them. Katie . . .” I sighed. “She’s pure human, right? Not thin-blooded or a merlin?” Humans with very small amounts of fae blood are sometimes still capable of working magic and perceiving the fae world; it’s rare, but it happens. We call them “merlins,” and we avoid them when we can. They’re dangerous, in their way.

“She’s human,” Quentin said, glaring.

I winced. “I didn’t mean to imply anything. But Quentin—whatever this is, it’s snatched purebloods, changelings, and now a human girl. What does that mean?”

“It means we have to get her back,” he said, jaw set in a hard line.