Chimes at Midnight: An October Daye Novel by Seanan McGuire Page A

shrimp, and every pepper in the store,” said Quentin happily.
    “Ew,” I said, and took the bag. If I left it alone with the two of them, Tybalt and I weren’t going to get any.
    “You don’t have to eat it.” She turned her deceptively normal-eyed gaze on me, considering my dress. Finally, she said, “You reek of the bitch-Queen’s magic, and you don’t normally bring the kitty-cat here. What’s wrong?”
    “Can we talk about it inside?” I asked. “Please?”
    The Luidaeg smiled, showing too many teeth. “I love it when you beg. Come on in.” She pushed past us to the door. It swung open at her touch, revealing a dark hallway. She stepped inside, calling, “Hurry up, I don’t have all night,” without turning back.
    “You know, the first time I came here, she used a key to get in,” I commented to Quentin, as we followed her.
    “I guess she doesn’t feel like she has to pretend as much,” he replied, pausing long enough to close the door behind him.
    The idea that the Luidaeg wasn’t pretending for us anymore was reflected by the hall itself, which was pristine, in that slightly shabby, lived-in way older apartments get when they’ve been well-cared for and well-loved for long enough. The air smelled like clean saltwater, a scent that implied there was a beach somewhere in the house, if we were brave enough to look. Knowing her, I wouldn’t have been surprised to find a stretch of shoreline inside the pantry, waiting for beachcombers and human sacrifices.
    It was almost a relief when I saw a cockroach scuttle across the floor. No matter how much she cleaned the place up—or how much of the mess had been an illusion—she was still the sea witch we knew and liked more than was probably good for our health.
    We followed the Luidaeg down the hall to the kitchen, where she began unpacking her groceries. Tybalt and I stayed in the doorway, watching, while Quentin moved to help her put away the cans. There was no illusion-sheen in the air around her because she wasn’t wearing one: she was the oldest among us, and her nature was protean enough that she didn’t need anything as crude as an illusion when she wanted to pass for human. She just changed herself.
    She looked like she was somewhere in her early twenties, with the fading ghosts of acne scars under the freckles on her cheeks and strips of electrical tape holding her thick brown pigtails in place. I’d seen her fae nature slip through a few times, but never for long, and never all the way. I was pretty sure that the day I saw the Luidaeg’s true form would either be the day she killed me, or the day when I had much bigger things to worry about.
    She placed a twelve-pack of Diet Coke in the fridge before turning to face me, folding her arms, and saying, “Well?”
    “Well?” I echoed. “What ‘well’? Did I miss something that would trigger a ‘well’?”
    “Well, can I have my burrito?” She held out her hand. “And, well, you want to tell me what’s going on? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost, and you wouldn’t have come here like this, fresh from Court and with an entourage, because you thought I wanted a burrito. You’re not stupid enough to think I wouldn’t realize something was up.”
    “Gee, you sure know how to make a girl feel good.” I straightened, dug her burrito out of the sack, and passed it to her. There was another burrito labeled “chicken w/o beans.” I handed it to Tybalt before taking a deep breath, putting the bag down on the kitchen table, and saying, “We finally found proof that the goblin fruit is killing changelings. At least a dozen so far.”
    “You found a body and waited until the night-haunts came, didn’t you?” She took a bite of her burrito, foil and all. Her teeth had turned sharp at some point, more like a shark’s than a human’s.
    “Yeah,” I confirmed quietly.
    The Luidaeg took another foil-covered bite of burrito and swallowed without chewing before she said, “They