Page 54 of Silver and Lead (October Daye #19)

SIXTEEN

T RACKING THE SCENT TRAIL from the car required two concessions: first, that Madden had to ride in his canine form, since his human nose was so much less sensitive that he’d never be able to find the trail, much less keep hold of it.

Second, he had to ride in the front seat.

Since he couldn’t speak, he needed to be as close to Quentin to possible to make sure that his signals got through.

Said signals were simple: he’d bark if he was losing the trail, allowing Quentin to back up and try another route, and he’d wag his tail as long as were heading in the right direction.

As I folded myself into the backseat, I was intensely grateful that I’d asked Quentin to drive.

My car was great, but it wasn’t as large, and I had a tendency to treat it like a rolling trash can sometimes.

The back was full of food wrappers and unwanted mail.

There was no way I’d have been able to fit comfortably.

I still wasn’t comfortable , but at least I had enough legroom. Spike settled in the middle seat, curling so its thorns were pressed flat against my leg rather than impaling me every time it twitched. I appreciated that. It looked at me with sleepy eyes before putting its head down on its paws.

Bucer climbed into the remaining backseat and smirked.

“Both of us get to ride second-class this time, eh, Daye?”

“I could punch you in the throat, you know.”

Spike raised its head, rattling ominously. Bucer ignored it.

“Ah, you’re enjoying our reunion or you’d have turned me over to that shiny new Queen of yours already. We both know you missed me.”

“I didn’t, Bucer.” I leaned back, resting one hand atop my stomach and the other on Spike’s back. “I really, truly didn’t.”

Quentin got into the driver’s seat after holding it open to let Madden leap in and across the car to the passenger side.

“Sorry about this,” he said, concern making his Canadian accent broader than usual, so that for a moment he sounded like he was setting himself up for a joke about pronunciation. “You all right back there, Toby?”

“I’m fine,” I said. “Go ahead and drive, and we’ll get this taken care of.”

“Got it.” He closed the car door, turned the engine on, and touched the roof with one hand, humming several bars of an old sea shanty. The smell of heather and steel rose around us, and he dropped his hand, looking pleased with himself as he pulled away from the curb.

“Don’t-look-here?” I asked.

“Big one,” he replied. “Can’t have a dog this good-looking hanging out the car window without people noticing us.”

Madden had put his own mortal disguise back on, and now looked like a golden retriever rather than an inexplicably red and white dog out of a fairy tale.

He barked once, agreeing with Quentin, then stuck his head out the open window, plumed tail waving wildly to signal that the trail was still in range.

Oh, I hoped he could stop wagging if he needed to. He said he could, but I didn’t like gambling my ability to find my husband on a dog’s ability to stop wagging his tail.

Still. Quentin was driving, my hand ached where I had stabbed it on the iron needle, and I was exhausted.

Maybe Tybalt had the right idea, encouraging me to stay home for months after Titania’s spell was broken.

Being out in the field was a lot harder on the body than I remembered, even without excessive blood loss—and if I’m in the field, there’s going to be excessive blood loss.

That’s sort of inescapable. I know my weaknesses.

Fortunately, bleeding is one of my strengths.

Keeping my eyes open in the back of a car as it’s being driven through the darkness is not one of my strengths.

They slipped slowly closed, and the world slipped away with them as I fell into a mercifully natural sleep, dozing as the car turned, sped, and hit the inescapable bumps left behind by the California highway system.

It was the deceleration that woke me. I opened my eyes, shifting to sit back up from the slight slump I’d developed while sleeping, and wiped the drool from my chin before looking around.

We were driving down an urban street I vaguely recognized, brick buildings and glass storefronts.

It wasn’t San Francisco. I could tell that much.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“Berkeley,” said Bucer. There was genuine fear in his voice.

I turned. He was sitting rigidly in his seat, one hand on the handle above the door, gripping so tightly that his knuckles had gone white.

If not for the human illusion covering him, I was sure his ears would have been pressed flat against the sides of his head.

Much like Madden’s tail, a lot of the part-animal fae have trouble keeping their bodies from visibly betraying them.

“Berkeley?” I asked. I rubbed my eyes, trying to clear the sleep away. I could have done with another hour or three. And a bed. A bed would have been absolutely amazing. And a bathroom. I winced, suddenly realizing how much I really needed to pee. “Hey, Quentin, can you be careful of the potholes?”

“Sure, Toby. Sorry, Toby.” I saw his grimace in the rearview mirror. He knew as well as I did that I was asking him to help me not pee in his car.

“It’s okay. I’ll hold on.”

Madden shimmered and was a man, awkwardly folded into the front of the car. “The trail’s been getting stronger for a while,” he said. “We should park.”

I looked around. “We’re near the campus,” I said. “This late at night, the student lots should be fairly open, and if you leave the don’t-look-here up, we won’t get ticketed.”

Quentin nodded. “And Walther may be at his office, which means you won’t have to pee in a bush.”

Did I like the idea of pausing our search so I could use an actual bathroom?

I did not, and I didn’t think Tybalt would do it if our positions were reversed.

But I also didn’t love the thought of trying to squat in a bush while I was so unwieldy, or figuring out if Quentin had anything in his car that could be used for toilet paper, and not having to do that seemed worth taking ten minutes out of the quest at hand.

There was also the possibility that Walter might somehow be able to help us now, as he so often had on other occasions.

Quentin pulled off the road and into the student parking lot closest to the science buildings, driving toward the hall where Walther’s office was located. There were only a few cars this late at night, and I was pleased when I saw Walther’s beaten-up old sedan in the faculty rows.

“There,” I said, with increasing urgency. Quentin pulled into the spot I was indicating, turning off the engine.

I had my seatbelt off by the time the car stopped running, and was already halfway out the seat.

Madden was still substantially faster. He looped around the car to offer me his arm and help me to my feet, then began to hustle toward the chemistry building.

Quentin followed behind, all but dragging Bucer by one arm.

The door was locked. Naturally; it was after midnight. I was thinking miserably of the effort needed to get another thorn from Spike and pick the lock when Madden brushed the keyhole with his fingers and muttered something under his breath.

There was a clicking sound and the door swung open. I lifted both eyebrows, blinking at him.

“I don’t have thumbs half the time,” he said. “I had to have some way of getting through closed doors. I can do that when I’m a dog, too.”

“You’re gay and I’m married, or I’d kiss you,” I said, and pushed through the unlocked door, into the cool, lemon-scented hall beyond.

The floor was slick but not slippery: while the custodians had clearly been through recently, they had only washed, not waxed.

I was grateful for that, even as I was focused solely on getting to the bathroom halfway down the hall.

Spike accompanied me, charging into the bathroom ahead of me and rattling its thorns with a degree of menace that would have triggered any ambush in pure self-defense. Nothing stirred in the darkened space. I crashed onward, into the first open stall, and managed to get myself situated in time.

Sagging with relief, I put my hands atop my stomach again. “You are a complication,” I informed it. “I’ll be really glad when peeing isn’t an emergency anymore. But hey, you’re getting another adventure with Mom before it’s time for diapers and overprotective dads. Congrats, kitten.”

The baby, naturally enough, didn’t reply.

I finished my business and cleaned myself up, leaving the sink running after I was done so Spike could get a drink. Rose goblins are plants—I think. They don’t eat so much as they photosynthesize, but they love a good drink of water.

When Spike dropped back to the floor I turned the faucet off. “Appreciate the help,” I said. It rattled its thorns at me. “Ready to go?”

It didn’t nod, but it did turn and trot toward the door, waiting there for me to come along. I smiled and followed after it.

There was an open door in the hallway that had been closed before, buttery light spilling out to illuminate the tile.

I turned in that direction, hurrying when I heard Walther’s voice drifting out, words unintelligible but tone light.

Whatever we’d interrupted, it wasn’t so important as to be a problem.

Once I reached the office door I looked in.

Walther was standing next to his desk, facing Quentin and Bucer.

As was often the case late at night, he had a full chemistry set out and in use, distilling various herbs and flower petals into something more esoteric.

He taught chemistry to human students, and he did alchemy at night, working his magic in a more solid form.

It’s a gift that often seems to arise in the Tylwyth Teg, although it isn’t limited to them.

“Bucer, show him those apple seeds,” I said.