Page 60 of Silver and Lead (October Daye #19)

“I work in food service,” he said. “Sometimes I have to finish out a shift with some pretty nasty burns on my hands. Alan would let me leave if I asked, but I’d rather do my job, clock out, and go to Muir Woods where I can be healed properly and not have a hospital bill or need to miss work on the far end.

That, and I do drag with Charles sometimes.

After I’ve been tucked and tied and fitted with stiletto heels, normal pain just doesn’t compare. ”

He was trying to sound light, but I could tell how much he was downplaying his pain.

I nodded, deciding not to say anything else, and worked the bracelet off my wrist. It immediately dissolved back into the blood that had been used to create it, and I knew that somewhere, the bracelet on Walther’s wrist had done the same.

I sent a silent prayer to anyone who might be listening, hoping that he hadn’t been relying too heavily on the bracelet in that moment.

As soon as the bracelet dissolved, the remaining cuts and punctures in my hands and wrists started to seal themselves, skin regrowing at a phenomenal rate.

Unusually for me, they left scars behind, the skin around them red and angry from to the iron poisoning.

I hissed as I looked at them, hesitantly touching one with the tip of a finger.

It throbbed. Until I got the iron out of my system, the damage wasn’t going to truly heal.

But it would heal enough to let me get out of this room.

Madden pulled the last of the thorn loops off of my ankles, and I sat up all the way, sliding my feet around to touch the floor, while Madden rose, whining as he looked at his hands.

I flinched. He’d hurt himself like that because of me, and while I was grateful, I still hated that he’d had to do it.

Even more, I hated that I had no clothes. I pulled up the bottom of the sheet and ripped off a long strip, tearing it in two before offering it to him.

Madden took it gratefully, winding it tightly around his hands.

I stood, draping the sheet carefully around myself.

Blood had soaked into the fabric, from the both of us, dappling it red and brown.

I could use that. I took a deep breath, reaching out and grasping for my magic, until I felt it snarling around my fingers like rough twine.

It wasn’t normally so scratchy or resistant, even when it didn’t want to rise. I attributed that to the iron in my system and pulled it toward me.

“Oh the broom, the bonny, bonny broom, the broom of the Cowdenknows. I wish my love were here with me, as long as love allows,” I chanted. The smell of copper and bloodied grass rose around me, then burst like a soap bubble, leaving the sheet feeling much tighter around my chest and upper arms.

I looked down at myself. The sheet was gone, replaced by a red and white dress that looked like something out of an overambitious Christmas pageant.

I could have been one of the Candy Cane Fairies of Sugarplum Lane.

But it was fitted to my current shape, with a high waist that sat just below my breasts and swooped around my stomach, and I wasn’t going to be escaping either naked or wearing a bedsheet.

Madden snorted. “You really need to read some fashion magazines if you’re going to start designing your own dresses.”

“I used to do it all the time, back when the false queen was in charge,” I said. “I didn’t have much of a wardrobe then, and I think she liked to watch the changelings struggle.”

Madden scowled, expression going deeply disapproving. “It’s not right,” he grumbled, voice halfway to becoming a growl. “Shouldn’t pick on changelings just because their magic is less developed, or less focused. It’s not right.”

“And on that, we agree.” I wiped my hands against my new dress to clear away the last lingering threads of magic, then looked toward the door. “You can’t shapeshift anymore, right?”

“I could , I just wouldn’t be able to walk if I did ,” said Madden.

He held up his burnt and blistered hands, showing me the wreckage of his palms. The damage was even worse than I’d assumed.

I was suddenly glad Dame Altair had stolen my weapons again.

At least now I’d only be tempted to break her nose, not stab her in the kidneys.

And the shell knife would return when I needed it, I was sure of that.

“But I can walk as a man. I have feet still.”

“That’s good,” I said. “We need to go.” There was no telling when my jailer would be coming back to take my baby and deliver it to Janet, who must be getting impatient by now.

Madden nodded and crossed to the door. Unable to open it with his currently useless hands, he just stood there, waiting for me to follow him. I did, grasping the handle and pulling to reveal the dark hallway on the other side.

We were still in the dungeon beneath Janet’s house, then.

I’d suspected as much, and having it confirmed didn’t change anything.

We crept down the hall in darkness, Madden close behind me, my back to the wall and my hands against the stone as I crept along.

It was slow and awkward, but striding didn’t seem like the best idea, not when I couldn’t see well enough to make out tripping hazards and Madden couldn’t catch me if I fell.

We reached a T-junction, the hall continuing ahead of us and off to one side at the same time. Squinting down the side corridor, I saw more doors, and turned in that direction.

Naturally, the first door I reached was locked. “Madden?” I whispered. “Can you still…?”

“I can,” he said, and reached out to brush one damaged hand against the knob. The door swung promptly inward, and we slipped into the cell on the other side.

It was identical to the room where I’d been kept, down to the rose thorn and iron ropes securing the prisoner to the bed.

Whoever it was, they were holding themselves perfectly still to avoid contact with the thorns.

I moved toward the bed, bare feet silent on the stone, and my breath caught in my throat as I saw an older iteration of my own face on the prisoner, crowned with a peacock’s crown of dyed hair, blue and green and purple.

I leaned in as close as I dared, and in a soft voice, said, “May, it’s me. Do not shriek or shout or anything else that might attract attention. We’re going to get you out of here.”

“Iron in the ropes,” said my Fetch, not opening her eyes. “You’re not you, you’re a hallucination.”

“Then I’m the hallucination that’s going to release you,” I said. “Just keep still and quiet.”

I leaned up, reaching for the ropes that held her left wrist in place. As soon as I touched them—as soon as she felt the tugging, however gentle, brushing the thorns against her wrist—her eyes snapped open and she turned to look at me with terrified hope. “Toby?”

“I told you I was,” I said, trying to focus on what I was doing.

The knots weren’t particularly sophisticated, but then, they didn’t need to be: not when the rope they were securing was literally toxic.

May could never have fought her way free, not without poisoning herself to a degree that her body simply couldn’t handle.

No, she wouldn’t die. But oh, she could spend some time wishing that she would.

I could understand that wish. Every time a thorn drove particularly deep or I brushed against one of the iron wires with an exposed wound, a jolt of sickening wrongness shot through my entire body, like I was biting down on a rotten tooth and inflaming the nerve with a sensation more primal and horrific than pain.

I had to pause every few seconds to give my hands a chance to heal.

Even without the bracelet that would protect me from Bucer’s influence if we saw him again, my wounds were healing more and more slowly as the iron built up in my system.

Still, I worked as quickly and unflinchingly as I could, freeing first her hands and then her feet.

May sat up on the bed and stared at me, eyes wide and round and terrified. “Jazz?” she asked, in a whisper.

“They don’t have her,” I said. “She’s hiding somewhere—she flew away before I got back to the house—but she’s safe, and once we’re all out of here, I’m sure you’ll be able to find her and convince her to come home.”

May sagged, putting her hands over her face.

Her wrists were ringed with strips of ragged red, skin lividly inflamed from the proximity of the iron.

She had surprisingly few scratches, but that may have been because the blisters forming there had already swallowed them whole.

She needed medical assistance, sooner rather than later.

“They told me they would catch her and pluck her feathers until she turned human, then steal her feather-band so she’d be trapped that way,” she said, voice low. “She’s a skinshifter, they’d lock her outside of Faerie if they did that.”

“It’s not going to happen,” I said, shaking my hands to try and lessen the sting of my slowly healing skin.

May’s eyes flicked from the motion to my face, and finally to Madden. “How bad is this?” she asked.

“They have Tybalt, Quentin, and Walther,” I said. “They clearly aren’t reluctant to use iron to keep prisoners in their place. Oh, and this was a setup from the start. Dame Altair was trying to lure me out of the house so she could kidnap me for her employer. Who turns out to be Janet, my—”

“ Our grandmother,” May interrupted. “I’m not letting you take the fall for that one alone. I thought she was chilling out these days.”

“She was, and then Titania screwed everything up by making Gillian go missing for months, which naturally caused Janet to decide I’d abducted her, since it was the easiest conclusion to reach—it also explained why Cliff didn’t remember having a daughter, since in that world, he and I had never met, much less hooked up.

So she got it in her head that Faerie was trying to screw her all over again, and decided to strike back as soon as she had an opening. ”

“What does she want?”

I put a hand on my stomach. “What do you think she wants?”

I wouldn’t have believed May’s eyes could get any wider, but somehow, they managed it.

She stared at me for several silent, heavy seconds before she shook her head and said, “No. I don’t care what she thinks Faerie took from her—or what Faerie actually did take from her—but we stopped trading in firstborn children a long time ago, and we’re not switching over to secondborn out of convenience. ”

“My thoughts exactly. Can you walk?”

“I think so.” May stood, somewhat wobbly.

Like me, she had only a sheet to cover herself.

Unlike me, she didn’t bother with transforming it into something more suitable for a jailbreak, just wrapped it around herself and tied it over one shoulder, forming a rough toga. “Let’s go kick Grandma’s ass.”

I led her to the door, which was still unlocked, thanks to Madden. Careful not to make a sound, I eased it back open and led the way into the hall.

The three of us stayed close together, moving with as much caution as we could manage.

Unlike Madden, May wasn’t content to let me take the lead; she pushed her way to the front of our little group, shielding me from view as much as possible.

I wasn’t too proud to pretend that I didn’t appreciate it.

I healed like nobody’s business, but she was literally indestructible, and I was pregnant. This made more sense.

The next door opened on a larger room that was actually lit.

Walther stopped moving and stiffened when he heard the door open behind him, his hands stilling in the work they’d been doing.

He had some sort of rough alchemical array set up on a low wooden table, and was blending and mashing a variety of fruits and flowers.

Some of them I recognized from the courtyard.

“I told you, I’m not a healer,” he said, sounding utterly resigned. “I’m doing what I can, but if you want to avoid breaking the Law, the boy needs proper medical help.”

“How bad is he?” I asked, voice soft.

Walther whipped around. “Toby!” he exclaimed, almost too loudly. He realized it, too, because he winced as soon as my name left his mouth, looking warily around for any sign that he’d been overheard.

We waited in tense silence for several seconds before the three of us pushed deeper into the room, heading for Walther’s workbench. “Where’s Quentin?” I asked.

This room was larger than the ones where May and I had been kept, almost large enough to qualify as a guest chamber, if only it had been a little better decorated… or decorated at all. Walther was at least free to move around the room. He saw me looking and shook his head wearily.

“They don’t need to tie me up, and they know it,” he said. “Quentin’s too badly hurt. I won’t leave without him, and nothing I can do is going to get him back on his feet in less than a week. Maybe longer.”

I remembered the sound of bone cracking after they’d hit me in the head. “Did they forget that he’s not actually my kid?” I asked.

Walther nodded. “I think Dugan may have. That, or he sees Quentin as a traitor to his descendant line, since he stood with you against their First. Either way, he fractured Quentin’s skull. I’m not sure how he’s not dead yet.”

I looked at the array of ingredients on his workbench. “What have you tried so far?”

“I’ve dropped his core temperature to stop—or at least slow—the swelling, and I’ve made some extracts of comfrey and boneset that will help the bones knit, if he makes it long enough for that to matter.

” He looked at me, openly weary. “I understand why running around with you all the time could make people feel like they’re invulnerable, but I need the bad guys to stop aiming for the head.

Normal people don’t bounce back from a fractured skull like it’s no big deal.

You don’t just damage bone. You bruise and traumatize the brain, and if it starts swelling, there’s not a lot of space available.

Half the time, it’s the pressure that kills people in head injuries. ”

His voice was hollow, pained: he’d seen this before. I didn’t know how or where, but he was very much speaking from experience, and it hurt him to think about it too much.

It hurt me to think about it at all. This couldn’t be how Quentin died. I wouldn’t allow it. “I don’t expect you to be able to make a full counteragent, but do you have anything that can reduce the amount of iron poisoning in somebody’s bloodstream?”

“I could pull iron out of blood, but not while that blood is inside a body,” said Walther. He eyed me warily. “Why?”

I took a deep breath, then forced myself to meet his eyes without flinching away.

“I have an idea,” I said.