Ashes of Honor: An October Daye Novel

It seemed like the whole room held its breath, waiting for Chelsea to answer. I know I wasn’t breathing. No matter how she answered, what I was going to do to her would hurt. I’d done it to my own daughter, but Gillian was unconscious at the time; she didn’t understand the source of the pain. Chelsea would understand. She’d know I was the one doing this horrible thing to her. I didn’t know her well enough to know whether she’d be able to forgive me.

Chelsea frowned, looking down toward her feet. A drop of the power dampener was on the toe of her shoe, glistening slickly. “When I was little, all I wanted was to be normal, so Mom wouldn’t have to spend all her time worrying about me,” she said slowly. “All the other kids got to have sleepovers and do sports, and I had to pretend I wanted to grow up to be Mr. Spock or one of Tolkien’s elves.”

“I bet you made a great Arwen at Halloween,” I said.

“Yeah.” She glanced up at me, smiling—a quick, shy thing that died just as fast. “But I’m not human, am I? I’ve never been human. All the wishing in the world can’t make me human.”

All the wishing in the world can’t, but I can, I thought. Aloud, I said only, “So what are you? Human, or fae?”

“Does it have to be one or the other?” Chelsea looked at me hopefully, eyes searching my face for an answer. My silence must have been answer enough. Chelsea sighed. “I’m fae. I wanted to be human, but I’m not. I wouldn’t know how to start. I’m me, and being me means being fae.”

“Okay.” I took a breath, not sure how to say what needed to be said. Finally, I settled for just coming out with it: “Chelsea, right now, you’re dangerous. The way you’ve been jumping isn’t normal for Tuatha de Dannan like you and your father. It’s because you’re half-human. Usually, being half-human means you’re less powerful. Sometimes it means the opposite. Sometimes it means you get all the power in the world and nothing to help you control it.”

Chelsea frowned. “So how do we fix that?”

Here it was. “I take the human out of you.”

“You can do that?” Her eyes widened. “Can you put it back if I change my mind?”

“No. Once it’s done, it’s done forever, but you won’t be dangerous anymore. You’ll be able to learn to control your powers. You’ll have a normal life.” A life that would last for centuries, if not millennia.

Chelsea bit her lip. Then, marginally, she nodded.

I didn’t let myself look up. I didn’t want to see the look on Etienne’s face as I turned her hand so that her palm was facing toward the ceiling and ran the edge of my blade—clean, thanks to someone’s efforts while I was asleep, and keen-edged enough to slice through skin without a hitch—across the center of it. Blood welled up immediately, scenting the air with its presence.

I repeated the process with my own hand before sheathing my knife again. Raising my hand to my lips, I got a mouthful of blood. Then I bent, and pressed my mouth against the cut on Chelsea’s hand in a parody of a kiss.

My magic rose around us in a heavy cloud, the smell of copper all but overwhelming the smell of fresh-cut grass. There was a momentary pause as Chelsea’s body tried to figure out what happening.

Then Chelsea screamed like she was being murdered and tried to jerk her hand away.

Etienne was abruptly there, holding her in place. “No, Chelsea, shh, it’s all right, honey, you have to be still. Let October work. It will be over soon. Let her work.”

Chelsea screamed again. I did my best to shut her out and focus on what I was doing: reaching for the tangled threads of humanity that wound through her and pulling them free, one by one. I patched the holes with Tuatha de Dannan, expanding the other part of her heritage until it was all she had. She was still screaming, her voice growing hoarse, and I was getting lost in the dark tangles of her self, the places where human and fae collided and made her something unique in all of Faerie.