Ashes of Honor: An October Daye Novel Read Online Free Page A

leading out to the street. Tybalt slipped past me, opening it before I could. I kept walking. “I’m fine, really.”
    “October…”
    It was late enough that the stretch of Valencia Street outside the police station was virtually deserted. The lights were on at the local bars—last call was more than an hour away—and a few homeless people huddled in doorways or panhandled around the ATMs, but for the most part, we were alone. I still glanced around to be sure that there were no officers on the sidewalk before I said, “I’m a little dizzy, but it’s nothing some orange juice and new jeans won’t fix. How did you know I was here?”
    “I saw the police take you. I couldn’t prevent it. So I dropped by your house to see whether anyone was intending to collect you.” Tybalt shrugged. “You knowwhat they say about curiosity and cats. Your lady Fetch said she would appreciate it if I would bring you home. As I try never to argue with death omens, here I am.”
    “What, May couldn’t come herself?” May is my former Fetch and current housemate. Not a normal living arrangement, even in Faerie, but she’s willing to do at least one thing I’m not: the dishes. Her girlfriend, Jazz, is a raven in her spare time.
    “She was otherwise occupied.”
    “Doing what?”
    Tybalt ignored my question. “I offered. She accepted. I felt we could stand to spend some time actually conversing. We’ve both been rather occupied of late.”
    “No, Tybalt,
we
haven’t been.
I’ve
been avoiding you. Which is a change from the way things normally go, but change is good, right?” I buried my hands in my jacket pockets. “I needed some time.”
    “I know,” said Tybalt, tone suddenly sober. “I’m sorry.”
    “Yeah. So am I.”
    Our relationship—it was too rocky to call it a friendship, although I didn’t have a better word—has always been punctuated by long periods of absence. It’s just that usually Tybalt was the absent one, while I was the one trying to find him. This time…after Connor died, I didn’t want to deal with anyone, especially not anyone complicated. Tybalt can be a lot of things, but if there’s one thing he’s never been, it’s simple.
    “About earlier…” I began, then stopped, unsure how to finish the sentence. The fae prohibition against something as simple as saying “thank you” can be clumsy sometimes. Like now. The gang of changelings would have stuck around to finish me off if Tybalt hadn’t stepped in. It was as if my ability to be careful had died with Connor, and I hadn’t figured out a way to resurrect it yet.
    “The house seems nice,” Tybalt said, tone neutral.
    I recognized the conversational save and grabbed it with both hands. “We’re almost unpacked. I’m gettingused to it. It’s nice to have everyone in their own room, so I don’t trip over Quentin every time I go to get a cup of coffee.”
    “I’m glad Sylvester was able to arrange the move.”
    “Me, too.” My liege, Sylvester Torquill, had been trying to get me to move out of my apartment for years. When I gave up Goldengreen—the knowe that was briefly in my possession—Sylvester put his foot down, insisting that if I wasn’t willing to move into Shadowed Hills, I was at least going to move into a place where I wasn’t sharing walls with humans. I’d responded by saying I wouldn’t move out of San Francisco. It was the Queen’s territory, and it was a long way from Shadowed Hills, but it was home. After some arguing, he acquiesced, and I took possession of one of the many houses he and his wife owned the title to.
    The new house was on 20th Street, overlooking Mission Delores Park. It would probably have cost a million or more on the open market. Sylvester did all his real estate investment in that area over a century ago. All he had to do was hand me the keys, and suddenly we had as much room as we needed.
    Moving meant boxing up all the things Connor had accidentally left at my place: shirts and