Literature / October Daye

Toby Daye is a private investigator. She's also a changeling — daughter of a faerie creature of the Summerlands and a human. A loyal knight, she was investigating the disappearance of her liege's daughter. Her liege's Evil Twin busted her doing it, and the consequences of being caught cost her fourteen years of her life and everything that mattered to her.

As a result, Toby cut herself off from dealing with the fae world, and lived as a recluse and hiding her fae appearance under spells and illusions, until another fae, with her dying breath, geased a reluctant Toby via answering machine to solve her murder.

This is where the adventure in Rosemary and Rue starts. Toby must return to the fae community to solve the case or literally die trying thanks to the geas. To her astonishment, the fae community is happy to have her back. And once she solves this case, she only finds more to do.

So far, the series, written by Hugo Award-winning author Seanan McGuire, comprises:

1. Rosemary and Rue (September 2009)
2. A Local Habitation (March 2010)
3. An Artificial Night (September 2010)
4. Late Eclipses (March 2011)
5. One Salt Sea (September 2011)
6. Ashes of Honor (September 2012)
7. Chimes at Midnight (September 2013)
8. The Winter Long (September 2014)
9. A Red-Rose Chain (September 2015)
10. Once Broken Faith (September 2016)
11. The Brightest Fell (September 2017)
12. Night and Silence (September 2018)
13. The Unkindest Tide (September 2019)
14. A Killing Frost (September 2020)
15. When Sorrows Come (September 2021)
16. Be the Serpent (September 2022)
17. Sleep No More (2023)
18. The Innocent Sleep (2023) - the events of Sleep No More from Tybalt's point of view
19. These Violent Delights (2024)

Short stories:

• "Rat-Catcher", which focuses on Tybalt's early history in Londinium, published in A Fantasy Medley 2.
• "Through This House", which fills in a few gaps between Late Eclipses and One Salt Sea, published in Home Improvement: Undead Edition. A few fragments have also found their way around.
• "In Sea-Salt Tears", a prequel to One Salt Sea, published on McGuire's website.
• "Never Shines The Sun", expanding on a story Toby only gets a glimpse of in Chimes At Midnight. It is available only in the paperback edition of Chimes At Midnight. Ebook versions do not (or are not supposed to) contain the short story.
• "Forbid the Sea", a sequel to "Rat-Catcher", published on McGuire's website.
• "No Sooner Met," a Tybalt-narrated short story chronicling Tybalt and Toby's first "official" date.
• "The Fixed Stars", about the Luidaeg's history, published in Shattered Shields.
• "Heaps of Pearl", featuring the first meeting of Dianda and Patrick of One Salt Sea, published on McGuire's website.
• "Full of Briars", in which we meet Quentin's parents, who get to decide if he remains with Toby after his Secret Identity starts to become less secret. Published electronically by DAW books.

Beginning with Once Broken Faith, every novel includes a bonus novella. However, these are only available in the print and ebook versions, not the audiobooks

• "Strangers In Court", included in the 10th anniversary hardcover reprinting of Rosemary and Rue; a prequel to the main series set during Toby's time at Home
• "Dreams and Slumbers", included with Once Broke Faith; in which Arden struggles with balancing her new life as "Queen in the Mists" with her old life as a bookseller. While dealing with her decision to wake her brother Nolan from his cursed sleep.
• "Of Things Unknown", included with The Brightest Fell; told from April O'Leary's POV
• "Suffer A Sea-Change", included with Night and Silence; Gillian's POV of the events in that novel
• "Hope Is Swift", included with The Unkindest Tide; a Raj-narrated story of his misadventures while the others were away during the novel
• "Shine In Pearl", included with A Killing Frost; part of the Lorden historical stories
• "And With Reveling", included with When Sorrows Come; a direct sequel to the novel, featuring the wedding reception
• "Such Dangerous Seas", included with Be The Serpent; the story of how the Luidaeg got her geas

There are additional short stories from Toby's 'verse available on the author's Patreon.

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This series provides examples of:

A-M

• Acquitted Too Late: Raysel's plan for Toby in Late Eclipses is for her innocence in Lily and Luna's poisonings to be discovered after she's been executed for it.
• Action Girl: Toby, who repeatedly states that she's uncomfortable when she's unarmed.
• Action Mom:
  • Dianda Lorden of Undersea, who's pretty much ready for a fight at a moment's notice.
  • Toby sort of qualifies — she's an action girl and a mother, but after her fourteen-year absence she's no longer a part of her daughter's life. She still goes Mama Bear when the children of her friends are in danger, though. And considering she ends Be the Serpent pregnant...
• Aerith and Bob: Fae (at least purebloods) are functionally immortal, so some of their names may have been more "normal" (in human society) when they were born.
  • Quentin is the "Bob" of his family, with his parents Aethlin and Maida and sister Penthea.
  • The three Torquill siblings are Sylvester, Simon, and September.
  • The Firstborn often have more than one name, but they include people named Eira, Antigone, Acacia, Amandine, Michael, and Pete.
• Affectionate Gesture to the Head: In One Salt Sea, the scary, unaffectionate Luidaeg gives Quentin's hair an affectionate ruffle.
• After-Action Healing Drama: Tybalt collapses in Ashes of Honor and Toby has to race to get the healer to help him.
  • In Chimes At Midnight, Tybalt collapses again and Toby has to make a deal with the Night Haunts to find out how to save him before it's too late.
  • In Once Broken Faith, Tybalt collapses again and has to be "elfshot" until a healer can be found. Different from the second case in that it was not from overexertion but from being impaled through the torso with a serrated stake.
• After-Action Patch-Up: After landing in ALH through the gate in Ashes of Honor, the first consideration is treating Tybalt's injuries; they talk as they go.
• Alchemy Is Magic: Alchemy is the speciality of the Kingdom of Silences in general, but Walther's in particular, and a natural fit with his day job as a chemistry professor.
• Alien Geometries - Knowes tend to have these.
  • ALH: Windows look out at different times of day. You can walk down a hall and be three floors higher at the other end than you started.
  • Shadowed Hills: Windows in the same room can look out at different locations (and seasons).
  • In the unclaimed areas of the Summerlands, distance isn't always consistent. If you really, really need to get somewhere, then wherever it is you want to go will become closer to you.
• All Part of the Show: Quentin muses that eventually the fae won't have to glamour up to hide from humanity. Mortals will just think they're part of an Augmented Reality game.
• All Therapists Are Muggles: The firm opinion of Raj's girlfriend, who is suffering from extreme PTSD thanks to Blind Michael. Raj himself hopes this is not the case... or if it is it should be changed as there are way too many people in need of it. He's not wrong.
  • Eventually Subverted with the reveal that there are several therapists on San Francisco alone who specialise in treating changelings.After her awakening, Rayseline is set up to meet with one as part of her healing process.
• Ambiguously Brown: Most Tuatha de Danaan are olive-skinned with dark hair, but since they're fae, they don't really correspond to any human ethnicity.
• And Now You Must Marry Me: Blind Michael planned to do this to Toby, at Acacia's expense.
• Annoying Arrows: Thoroughly averted. Elf-shot is fatal to changelings and mortals, and arrow wounds can take down even pureblooded skin-shifters.
• Antagonistic Offspring: Rayseline is this to Sylvester and Luna after her years of captivity turned her Ax-Crazy and she gets involved in a conspiracy with Oleander.
• Anyone Can Die - It's spoilery to name names, but the fae are capricious and cruel. So is their world.
• Ape Shall Never Kill Ape: Codified by Oberon's Law. No pureblood shall kill another pureblood. Of course, this led to the creation of Elfshot so war could still be waged (it's not killing if your foe sleeps for a hundred years). The Law itself doesn't protect changelings or humans, and many a Fae has found ways around it like Rhys, former King of Silences, who kept the usurped royal family under elfshot and carved pieces of them for alchemical potions.
• Arranged Marriage - Connor and Rayseline, a political marriage to tie Shadowed Hills with the underwater Duchy of Salt Mist.
• Arrested for Heroism: Toby in Late Eclipses. She is on trial among other things for "the murder of Blind Michael". Yes, the child stealing monstrosity everybody sensible agrees she deserves a medal for. This is even pointed out several times in the book.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking - Toby's list of reasons why she can't be Quentin's knight starts with "I keep getting him shot" and ends with "I don't brush my teeth every night before bed."
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Undersea nobility are expected to be warriors; their culture is a bit bloodier than that of the land fae. Dianda Lorden and her "punch your problems until they're no longer problems" attitude are no exception. In fact, her husband Patrick says that by Undersea standards, Dianda is a pacifist.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Toby and Tybalt. They behave more like Slap-Slap-Kiss but as the books progress, it becomes clearer that it's to mask genuine affection for each other.
• Ax-Crazy: Rayseline was driven mad by a traumatic kidnapping and her own self-contradictory mixture of bloodlines.
  • Inverted with Book 6's villain. Toby's warned repeatedly that the character is more dangerous because they're sane - they can't be counted on to make the same mistakes an insane person might.
  • Said to be a racial hazard for anyone with mixed blood of two different faerie races due to the blood warring with itself. Most characters with mixed blood have shown some degree of instability, increasing in proportion to just how much of a mixed heritage they have. The Queen of the Mists, with three different bloodlines within two generations, is a clear example, and Toby and Luna theorize later on that part of the reason Rayseline went so far off the reservation was due to her heritage.
• Back from the Dead: Countess Evening Winterrose was actually never dead, and it's such an amazing miracle to the fae that they never consider that might not be a good thing.
  • Alex and the Luidaeg, both courtesy of Toby's Dochas Sidhe powers.
  • As of "Once Broken Faith" Toby starts realizing after she fell to her death that some of her close calls in earlier books were actually this.
  • As of Of Things Unknown, everyone who died in A Local Habitation.
  • Subverted in Sleep No More. In Titania's Faerie, deceased characters like Devin and Blind Michael initially seem to have been resurrected. However, it's gradually revealed that even Titania's reality warping can't just bring someone back the dead. "Devin" and "Blind Michael" are thus either facsimiles or bewitched victims meant to fill the gaps in Titania's Faerie left by the deceased.
• Badass and Child Duo: In Once Broken Faith, Karen is the child. The Luidaeg is the badass, there to protect her from Eira Rosynhwyr, who has been threatening her in her dreams.
• Badass Family: Any of the Firstborn, because they're only one remove from Oberon/Titania, Oberon/Maeve, or Oberon/____.
  • Team Toby. May is technically and legally her sister. Quentin qualifies as her ward. Raj may as well have been adopted alongside him, and she's Tybalt's partner. Her choosing Simon on his divorce also ties her with Dianda and her extended family. And that is not taking into account Toby's blood relatives: Amandine, and her aunt the Luidaeg, who also now owes Toby a life debt.
• Bearer of Bad News: Toby has to be this in Rosemary and Rue for the Torquills.
  • Once again Toby has to take this position in The Brightest Fell when asked directly.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: October and Tybalt in the earlier books, but once it is resolved, they become almost Sickeningly Sweethearts.
• Beneath Suspicion: How Oleander gets into Shadowed Hills. Also the reason why Toby herself accidentally overlooks one of the culprits in Once Broken Faith; she's shocked and disturbed to realize she's started thinking more like a pureblood than a human.
• Benevolent Boss: Sylvester and January. Also, the High King and Queen of the Westlands.
• Berserk Button: Toby hates it when people keep secrets from her, especially if they argue that it was for her own good when she finds out.
• Big Bad:
  • Rosemary and Rue: Devin is the one responsible for the apparent death of Evening Winterrose which is the main plot of the novel.
  • A Local Habitation: Gordan is responsible for the various killings taking place at Tamed Lightning which Toby is investigating during this novel.
  • An Artificial Night : Blind Michael serves as the main villain of the book having abducted various children to help with his Wild Hunt.
  • Late Eclipses: Oleander de Merlands and Rayseline Torquill plot here to frame Toby for various murders that they committed in hopes of having her executed for them.
  • One Salt Sea: Rayseline Torquill and Dugan plot during the novel to incite a war between the Undersea and Kingdom of the Mists in order to take control of The Mists.
  • Ashes of Honor: Samson as well as Treasa Riordan are responsible for the kidnapping of a young changeling whose powers they plan to use in order to allow them to take over the court of cats from Tybalt and conquer a new realm respectively.
  • Chimes at Midnight: The false Queen of the Mists is responsible for the deaths of various changeling children due to her distributing and selling a fatal narcotic drug to them.
  • The Winter Long: Eira Rosynhwyr AKA Evening Winterrose plans to forcefully take over Shadowed Hills and has helped her descendants seize various kingdoms in order to allow her to rule.
  • A Red-Rose Chain: King Rhys plans on starting a war with the Kingdom of Mists in order to enact his racist blood purity policies on them as well as impress his love, the false Queen of the Mists by getting revenge on Toby for her.
  • Once Broken Faith: Queen Verona is responsible for the assassinations of royals which take place here. The main purpose of this is to help increase her power.
  • The Brightest Fell: Amandine the Liar is Toby's mother and the main antagonist of this novel. During the novel, she kidnaps and holds captive the Love Interest of Toby and will only free him should Toby find Amandine's eldest daughter.
  • Night and Silence: The False Queen of the Mists, once again, kidnaps Gillian with the help of a thin-blood changeling named Jocelyn in an attempt to force Toby to return her Siren blood.
  • Be the Serpent, Sleep No More, and The Innocent Sleep: Titania, whose longtime disappearance is finally explained and resolved — which results in all hell breaking loose, as she warps reality to permanently turn Faerie into her idealized version (and to punish Toby and company).
• Big Eater: Quentin, as befits a teenage boy. Any time food is offered, he responds with an enthusiastic will. He often stashes snacks in his pockets.
  • Raj, Karen, Dean Lorden, and Chelsea are also teenagers and are also this.
• Bigot with a Crush: Tybalt dislikes changelings (Hybrids of Fae and humans) due to his beloved human wife having died in an attempt to give birth to their changeling daughter. Its why he he initially didn't like Toby due to her being a changeling as well. Over time though he genuinely falls in love with her and even eventually lets go of his prejudice to be with her.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: All of the Firstborn are this, being half-siblings at the least.
• Bittersweet Ending: Sleep No More. Toby and company successfully stop Titania from making her reality warping permanent, restoring the real Faerie (and with it Toby's pregnancy). With Titania's Ride broken, she's claimed by the Heart of Faerie as the Sacrifice (instead of Quentin and Simon). But the characters have all come out of Titania's Faerie having seem glimpses of what they could've become for better and for worse. Some benefit from this (ex. August and Toby become closer siblings) while others (ex. Quentin and Simon) are left guilt-ridden and suffering PTSD. Worse, as one of the First and as a child of the Heart, Titania can't actually die. The Heart technically claimed her as the Sacrifice for now, but will throw her back eventually (given the mechanics of the Ride, the Luidaeg figures they've got at least 7 years). When she finally comes out, Titania's gonna be pissed and gunning for all their heads more than ever. And while she still can't directly harm Toby and company because of Oberon's bindings, this entire incident's proven Titania can and will find another loophole to exploit. The only upside is that Titania pumped so much magical juice into the reality warping that with the spell broken at its source, she won't be able to do this again.
• Bizarre Taste in Food: Lucky Charms in coffee instead of milk.
  • The Luidaeg eats her burritos with the foil still on.
• Blood Magic: The Daoine Sidhe (and any changelings descended from them) are particularly good at it, as are The Luidaeg many other faeries descended from Maeve. Amandine and her daughter race, the Dochas Sidhe are even better.
• Blood Upgrade: Amandine and Toby both get big powerups from being near blood, as do most Daoine Sidhe. Even more pronounced later when Amandine changes the balance of Toby's blood
• Bookends: At both the beginning and end of An Artificial Night, Toby attends a birthday party for one of her friend Stacy's kids.
• Break the Cutie: What becoming part of Blind Michael's ride did to Quentin's human girlfriend, and several other children stolen for that purpose.
  • A different instance of breaking the cutie at the hands of Oleander and Simon, involving keeping her in a formless, dark nothingness for years is why Rayseline is Ax-Crazy.
• Brain Uploading: Dryads normally live inside trees. After her grove was cut down, April the dryad escaped and January O'Leary managed to put her consciousness into an information "tree" in a computer server. Later on in A Local Habitation, it turns out the secret project ALH was working on was a way to do this to all fae, and Gordan was using it to kill people by uploading their minds.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: In Sleep No More, this is Luidaeg's opinion of Titania. She says Titania's always been more focused on being seen as clever instead of actually putting in the work. This ends up being a key factor in undoing her altered Faerie (as Titania's reality warping, while extensive, didn't go deep enough and she left enough cracks in the foundation to exploit.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Toby gets a chance with Amandine, but it doesn't actually help much.
  • She also vows to do this to her grandfather, Oberon, if she ever meets him.
• The Call Left a Message: Countess Evening Winterrose's phone message at the beginning of the first book, which carries a geas to force Toby onto the job.
• Cats Are Magic: Faerie superstition goes that, so long as a cat exists, the memory of the fae will go on. Also, Toby's cats apparently report to Tybalt, although they don't have other magical qualities.
• Cats Are Mean: This is a truism for the entire Cait Sidhe population, if you translate "mean" to indicate "bloodthirsty and dangerous." Their rites of ascension are all barbarous and bloody — a royal kitten is not considered worthy for ascension if they can't hold their own in a fight. That said, individual Cait Sidhe can be as mean or as kind as their inclinations permit.
  • Tybalt, for example, begins the series cold, sarcastic, and aloof, but as he and Toby work together more often and grow closer, she (and the reader) sees that he's actually kind-hearted, affectionate, and honorable.
  • Raj talks smack in the faces of Quentin's parents, insouciantly, because as a royal kitten, he doesn't have to respect the Court hierarchy. He holds nothing back regarding his feelings on them potentially taking his brother from another mother away from him.
• Cats Are Superior: The entire Cait Sidhe population have smugness as a racial trait, at least this is what Toby thinks when she meets Raj. It might have something to do with them being specifically outside of the political structure that strangles Faerie. There is nothing the royals can actually do to the Cait Sidhe and they are well aware of this detail. "A Cat can look at a king," after all.
• Cats Have Nine Lives: One of the boons of being the local King or Queen of Cats is more than one life, but not as many as nine. Tybalt doesn't share the exact number. As of Once Broken Faith, he has none left.
• The Cavalry Arrives Late: In both the first and second books, Sylvester and his knights arrive on the scene just after Toby's dispatched the Big Bad.
• Celestial Deadline: Sunrise burns away magic, dissolving most spells.
• Cessation of Existence: January and the other victims at ALH are the first fae in a long time to die without getting to live on for a while as night-haunts.
• Character Witness: Danny, the troll cab driver who befriends Toby tells her that her money is no good here due to Toby's having helped his sister. But he also stands as a literal character witness when one of the royals tries to set Toby up in a slanted trial.
• Chekhov's Armoury: Any previous book to every following book. Especially the magic signatures, but every small detail can come back to haunt, doubly so if it has anything to do with the Luidaeg. Up to what verb tense is used when referring to some characters.
• Chekhov's Gunman: In Rosemary and Rue:

  The Luidaeg: You never did give me my receipt, honey.

• Cleanup Crew: The night-haunts appear whenever a fairy dies to take away the obviously-not-human body (which won't decay either) and replace it with a human-looking substitute to maintain The Masquerade.
• Clear My Name: Most of Late Eclipses. It's a story of the villains trying to get October executed for things (the murder of Lily the attempt on Luna's life) the villains did... and literal heroism (see:Arrested for Heroism).
• Clear Their Name: Toby has to do this for the entire kingdom of "The Mists" in One Salt Sea. She has to prove that not the Kingdom of Mists (or it's Queen) is responsible for the abduction of the sons of Dianda Lorden (Duchess of the neighbouring Undersea county) and avert a war.
• Cliffhanger: Be the Serpent ends on one (which is in itself a first for the series). Just as Toby and Tybalt realize she's pregnant, Titania attacks their home. Titania can't hurt Toby's family due to Oberon's new bindings, but she's figured out a loophole in Toby's case. Titania does...something that leads to October somehow winding up back in Amadine's Tower (or an illusion of one), utterly subservient to her pureblood sister August, and with no memory of her life, friends, and family.
• Compelling Voice: The part-Banshee, part-Siren Queen, whose speaking voice can inflict pain or compulsion on the listener. If she sings...
  • Eira Rosynhwyr can do this to any of her descendants or those who swear loyalty to them
    • This does not affect those subordinates whose loyalties to kith or kin come before sworn loyalty; for instance Etienne's loyalty to his wife and daughter trumps his loyalty to Sylvester and Dean Lorden's loyalty to his mother allows him to resist Eira Rosynhwyr when he comes face to face with her.
• Conditioned to Accept Horror: Faerie in general, particularly when it comes to Blind Michael's escapades
• Converse with the Unconscious: Tybalt does this when Toby is getting over severe iron poisoning. Toby does it back when he's in an elfshot-induced slumber after getting stabbed.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Most purebloods are implied to be this, since no one in faerie lives poor if they don't have to.
• Cowardice Callout: In Be The Serpent, October calls Oberon a coward who shirked his duties after she learns that her friend Stacy is actually Queen Titania cursed to forget herself and live incognito while leaving no trace of her actual self, which has caused her to start murdering her children because they've manifested power far greater than ordinary changelings possess. Oberon is sufficiently chastized by this to agree to help October.
• Creepy Child:
  • April O'Leary, the first cyber-dryad is one of these. Especially since she also has a full grown woman form that slips back to the child form when she's upset or frightened.
  • This is true of the kids left as the Wild Hunt after Toby rescues hers. They're either unwilling/unable to turn back to what they were, or so much time has passed that they don't remember what they were. Whichever, they're all obviously unsettlingly off.
• Crush Blush: Toby, when Tybalt compliments her looks.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Evening's "death", and her geasing Toby into solving it, is what starts off the series. The Luidaeg habitually threatens people with these too, those are mostly just that "threats", but she is very good at vivid descriptions.
• Cry into Chest: Tybalt and Connor both serve as handkerchiefs on occasion.
• Cue the Sun: Played straight and inverted. Fae magic burns away at dawn and spells must be replenished. And certain fae races have things that happen for them at sunset.
• Curse Escape Clause: Toby goes to the Luidaeg to find one when Evening's curse comes close to end her. She doesn't find one. Turns out the curse escape cause of "find who did this to me or else" is finding who did that to them.
• Dances and Balls:
  • The Beltane Ball at Shadowed Hills is a plot point in Late Eclipses. According to Toby, Fae parties can last longer than fourteen years.
  • "The Winter Long" begins with a celebration ball.
• Dangerous Workplace: ALH. A serial killer on-site tends to do that.
• Day Hurts Dark-Adjusted Eyes: As the Fae are nocturnal, they often deal poorly with sudden bright light. When Toby is getting over severe iron poisoning after being kept in a pitch-black prison in Late Eclipses, her eyes are extremely sensitive and painful.
• Deal with the Devil:
  • Toby's deal with the Luidaeg seemed like one at first, but eventually the Luidaeg asked for a favor in return that left them square.
  • Toby currently owes the night-haunts a favor...
  • April O'Leary blackmailed the night-haunts into doing her a favor, and they were very displeased about it.
  • Simon made a deal with Eira Rosynhwyr to help him find his daughter August.
• Death Notification: Connor comments that he has to do this for a selkie that died in ALH.
• Death of a Thousand Cuts: The Blood Road's toll is a painless version of this.
• Death of the Hypotenuse: Happens to Connor in One Salt Sea, paving the way for Toby's eventual romance with Tybalt.
• Debt Detester:
  • All of Faerie, to the point that even saying "thank you" is considered very rude. When Arden, who got used to living with mortals, claims her birthright, she accidentally thanks some of her staff and they're so offended they quit.
  • The Luidaeg's works can be paid for by another than the one who will benefit from it. She tries very, very hard to make sure that her charge understands very well what will happen if they do. She tries very, very hard to talk them out of it. Poppy the pixie and Simon Torquill both accepted someone else's debt anyway and paid a dear price.
• Deceptive Legacy: Played with:
  • Amandine is deceptive to Toby and pretty much most of the rest of the faerie about Toby's true bloodlines. The other Firstborn know her as Amandine the "Liar"
  • in Ashes of Honor. Bridget is a folklore professor and knows that the father of her child isn't human, but because all she has is folklore, she gets a lot wrong about what he really is. Of course, she passes the wrong info to her child, with the best of intentions and desire to protect.
• Defeating the Undefeatable: Toby has to do this at the end of An Artificial Night. The undefeatable in this case is Blind Michael, a Firstborn and leader of the Wild Hunt.
• Delinquent: The changelings of Home, including Manuel, Dare, and previously Toby. Many were street kids to begin with, and aren't above theft and petty crime to get by.
• Destructive Romance:
  • Devin and Toby's. There was the power dynamic due to Devin's position as the owner operator of Home, not to mention their age difference.
  • Oleander and Simon: Simon was in a bad place for a number of reasons. Oleander asked for him as a plaything and the fae she served knew it would cause problems, so permitted it.
• Didn't See That Coming: Zigzagged during the ending of Be the Serpent when Titania attacks Toby's home. While Team Toby knew Titania would be a problem moving forward, they also expected she'd take time to lick her wounds and plan out her next move. They didn't expect that Titania would immediately come gunning for them not even an hour after her defeat in Muir Woods. They also didn't anticipate such a frontal attack, because the new bindings Oberon put in place to protect Toby and her family from retribution should've prevented it. Unfortunately, as one of the Three, Titania has Loophole Abuse down to an art form and she quickly figured out how to circumvent Oberon's bindings to get at Toby.
  • Sleep No More expands on this, adding context to why Toby and company got caught off guard by Titania's retaliation. Her reality warping of Faerie had been planned and ready to go for a long time (but hadn't been executed between Oberon's bindings and how risky the plan was). Toby's actions pissed her off enough to pull the trigger then and there (and to quickly and easily adjust the plan to hurt Toby and company without technically violating Oberon's bindings).
• Didn't Think This Through: Oberon bound Titania to live as one of the humblest of fae till she learned her lesson. To prevent her from amassing power in that form one way or another, she was also bound to destroy any evidence of who she was, or any legacy a given incarnation started to build. While that sounds almost like it could be a good idea on the surface, this turned out to include any children she had while amnesiac, and she was bound to keep repeatedly murdering her children in brief periods of lucidity, since they would be a legacy and also something that could betray who she was. Oberon didn't intend that, though Toby snaps at him that he should have considered it.
• Disappeared Dad: Mainly because he was unaware of the child's existence, Sir Etienne of Shadowed Hills. Once he knows about it, he steps up and the trope stops applying.
• Doctor's Orders: Jin tries to pull this to make Toby rest in Ashes of Honor and again in Once Broken Faith. Toby being the recklessly heroic woman she is, it doesn't work.
• Does Not Know How to Say "Thanks": All of Faerie. Thanking someone is either very rude or very serious among the fae because it implies a debt to the thank-ee.
• Doppelgänger: Used in Rosemary and Rue: an assassin takes the shape of Toby's now-teenage and very estranged daughter Gillian.
  • In the third book, Toby meets her fetch, a perfect copy of herself that is supposed to guide her to her death. May later starts dyeing her hair and doing other things to make herself look less like Toby, although sometimes when Toby gets into sufficiently perilous trouble she'll accidentally shapeshift herself back.
• Dreaming Of Things Gone By: Karen ends up with this ability as part of her rare power of oneiromancy.
• Driven to Suicide: Dugan Harrow after his plan to restore the false Queen to the throne is foiled. It doesn't stick.
• Dwindling Party: The group in ALH goes from seven people down to two over the course of the book.
• Dying Declaration of Love: Tybalt, after just barely surviving an attack on his life, finally tells Toby how he feels about her. But it turns out not to really be a dying declaration as medical attention gets administered shortly thereafter.
• Dying Race: the Roane, mainly because they were skinned to make Selkies. This is why the Luidaeg and the Selkies do not get along.
• Eating the Eye Candy: Toby has no trouble appreciating Tybalt's skin-tight leather pants even before they officially become a couple.
• Emergency Impersonation: May has to use her similarity to Toby as her Fetch to pull this every once and a while.
• Entitled Bastard:
  • Quentin starts out stiff and snobby about his pureblood status, but quickly softens up once he starts hanging around Toby.
  • August, daughter of Amandine is a complete spoiled brat and imperious on top of that.
• Equivalent Exchange: The Luidaeg runs on this. In later books it's revealed she charges so harshly because she's not allowed to refuse a deal, so the best she can do is make the price too high.
  • August overconfidently took the Luidaeg at the extremely dear price she demanded, and the cascading consequences made her impossible to find for years.
• Even Evil Has Standards: In The Innocent Sleep, Tybalt speculates this is why Titania didn't try to ressurect Oleander de Merelands — or alternately to create a facisimile to fill her gap in Faerie. Tybalt thinks even Titania recognized her remade Faerie would be better off without the assassin. Mary confirms this, while also providing more context as to why Titania would pass on Oleander.
• Everyone Can See It: Toby and Tybalt's friends figured out how they felt long before either of them did.
• Everyone Is Bi: Bisexuality is the norm among Fae, since they're immortal and have low fertility anyway. October is the only member of the main cast who's explicitly not bisexual, and that's due to her being a changeling though she's been getting closer and closer to becoming a pureblood fae due to repeatedly having to change the balance of her blood away from human.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Samson, the would be King of Cats to replace Tybalt. He literally does not get the idea of ruling in a different fashion than with an iron ...er, paw.
• Evil Matriarch: Amandine the Liar proves to be this when she forces Toby into a case Toby would otherwise have refused. Taking hostages, exploiting Exact Words to hurt Toby even after the task is completed. In A Killing Frost, both October and her half-sister August choose to break their ties to her and make themselves tied only to her husband, Simon, when he divorces her.
• Exact Words:
  • Sylvester casts a geas on his own twin brother Simon to protect Toby. But he's more of a sword-swinger than an intricate magic worker, resulting in loopholes due to insufficiently specific phrasing. When the geased party breaks the condition of "casting a spell against her" the geas slams down with the punishment because it couldn't tell the spell was to protect Toby.
  • Hostages were taken against Toby completing a task, with a promise to return them. When Toby completes the task, she is told:
  I promised to give them back. I never promised when.
• Face Death with Dignity: Toby tries to do this multiple times, but always manages to escape with her life somehow.
• Faerie Court:
  • The Divided Courts rule the collective kingdoms of the Fae, and are ruled by a High King and Queen who are in charge of all the Fae of North America (the other continents and Undersea realms presumably have their own). The various cities and locales have their own individual rulers who are in charge of the day to day affairs of the Fae that live there. The High King and Queen will sometimes organize a conference which invites the various rulers in order to create new rules or for decision making.
  • The Court of Cats, consisting of the Cait Sidhe, is the only kingdom of Faerie that is excluded from the Divided Courts by decree of Oberon, one of the progenitors of the Fae. Their monarchs act independently from the others and are given more freedoms due to this.
• Fairy Ring: Fairy rings are a kind of magic spell that freezes its target in time until either the spell wears down or the ring is broken, and are the reason for stories of humans vanishing into the woods and reappearing a century later. While they're very easy to make, they still have their downsides, as the target can't be moved without breaking the circle, and someone has to keep watch in order to keep the spell going and stop anyone from disrupting the circle.
• Fake Period Excuse: The first book has Toby begging off work by implying her period is troubling her to her manager at her mortal job.
• The Fair Folk: Name dropped, Discussed and Played With. Some Purebloods, especially the most insane or the Firstborn, fall into this but it isn't a universal trait. Some people can be very empathetic to humans and each others but others go off the deep end.
• Famed In-Story: Toby. After the events of An Artificial Night fae in the human world and in the Summerlands know her as the heroine who not only brought home children kidnapped by the Wild Hunt, but who also killed Blind Michael, one of the Firstborn. After dethroning the false Queen of the Mists she also gained the reputation of ''king-breaker'', which with the omnipresence of royalty in the story qualifies as becoming The Dreaded.
• Fantastic Drug: Goblin fruit. It's cultivated by purebloods to cause pleasant dreams and a nice distraction from mortals encroaching on the world. But for changelings and humans, it's instantly and unbreakably addictive - until overindulgence or withdrawal kills them.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • Changelings are seen as inferior by many pureblood fae, and some of them are very nasty about it. Since October herself is not only a Changeling but the first one to ever be granted a knighthood, this comes up a lot.
  • The Dryads are all nasty to April because she's a cyber-dryad rather than one tied to a tree.
  • According to the Chrysanthe and Theron, fae with obvious animal characteristics were once looked down upon as much as changelings were, until changelings became more common and drew the purebloods' ire.
  • Cheating on your pureblood spouse with another pureblood fae is considered adultery. Cheating on your spouse with a changeling or a human is considered a dalliance but not adultery.
• Fantastic Underclass: Changelings are this, they're even called a "born underclass" in Chimes at Midnight. They're stuck between the world of mortals and that of immortals. Discriminated against and treated as lesser by purebloods. Many of the things in fairy can hurt and outright kill them and their relatives and parents can treat them as children family or even Living Props for them.
• Fate Worse than Death: By fairy standards, this is what the deaths of the victims at ALH are, because their memories aren't preserved by the night-haunts. January doesn't even get digitized into the computer, so she's the first truly gone fairy in a long time. This trope stops applying as of Of Unknown Things.
• Fear Is the Appropriate Response: The Luidaeg knows that her brother isn't someone to challenge lightly. None of the Firstborn are.
• Fiery Cover-Up: Often the result of the Changeling's Choice, no matter what the child actually chose: either their mortal parent suffers a tragic "accident," or if the child chooses to stay human, they do too.
• Finger in the Mail: The Lordens receive a box with Dean's finger after he is kidnapped in One Salt Sea.
• Fingore: The kidnapper in One Salt Sea sends one of the victims' fingers to their family.
• Fisher King: The knowes reflect the styles of their owners/rulers, and mourn if their owner/ruler is killed.
  • Subverted with Goldengreen: As of One Salt Sea, Toby regards the pixies and bogeys as the owners of the knowe because the knowe does... and possibly because Toby is a changeling rather than a pureblood. This changes when Dean becomes Count of Goldengreen.
  • Now that the lands of the Wild Hunt are owned by Acacia rather than Blind Michael, they are beginning to improve slowly (where possible).
  • Treasa Riordan's current residence in Annwn does not appear to have begun responding to her one way or another yet.
• Flower Motifs: Aside from the omnipresent rose imagery (see Something about a Rose below):
  • Luna gives Connor a basket of love-lies-a-bleeding and love-in-idleness to beg him to love her daughter.
  • Toby receives a bouquet of blue and white ice roses plus rose-bay from someone who is magically bound from speaking as a way of warning her.
  • Tybalt presents Toby with a message bouquet in "No Sooner Met".
• Forced Addiction: In Chimes at Midnight, Toby gets a Pie in the Face made of goblin fruit, which is instantly and unbreakably addictive, requiring her to eat more or starve to death in withdrawal.
• Foreshadowing: Lots of it, which gives the series of books a lot of Rewatch Bonus. A special prize has to go to Toby's first real conversation with the Luidaeg, though. In only a few pages, she manages to hint that Evening isn't dead and that she's a Firstborn, that Toby's mother is a Firstborn, that Toby's blood has been altered by her mother, and that Toby's not only not Amandine's only child but that her first child came to see the Luidaeg in the past.
• Fugitive Arc: Toby spends the latter part of Late Eclipses fleeing justice.
• Gaslighting: In Late Eclipses, Oleander and Rayseline conspire to murder a number of Toby's friends and pin the murders on Toby herself. Part of their plan is to use drugs and illusions to make Toby herself think she's nuts. They almost succeed.
• Geas: Used a lot by several different characters.
  • The plot of the first novel is kicked off by Evening Winterrose leaving a voicemail for Toby that contains a binding, compelling Toby to solve her murder as soon as possible, or the curse will literally kill her.
  • The Luidaeg became what she is today due to several geasa Titania placed on her: She Cannot Tell a Lie, will always give someone what they need if they meet her price, and cannot harm any descendant of Titania.
  • Similarly, Oberon bound Eira Rosynhwyr to be unable to harm any of Amandine's line.
  • Eira Rosynhwyr bound Simon and the Luidaeg to be unable to tell anyone about her unless they figured it out on their own.
• Genre Savvy: Quentin, who knows better than to believe Toby saying "I'll be right back" after May gets him watching horror movies.
• Getting Smilies Painted on Your Soul: Blind Michael's MO. He's a Firstborn, with enough raw power to make you believe he is a god and you only want to please him forever.
• Give Me a Sword: Sylvester loans his to Toby.
• God Save Us from the Queen!: The Queen of the Mists as she appears in the first few books, is not a stable monarch by any means.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Toby's scars from the bullets with which she was shot during her first adventure are significant in the second, as she draws attention to them to advise her Sidekick that it isn't all fun and games.
• Graceful in Their Element: All of the sea fae. They're awkward on land at best, but in the ocean, they're poetry in motion.
• Groin Attack: Etienne does this to Dugan the Daoine Sidhe, since the latter was holding an iron knife and that meant that all bets were off regarding a fair fight.
• Half-Breed Discrimination: Discrimination against changelings is near-omnipresent in the fairy world, with most simply accepting it as the natural order of things.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Also quarter-human, three-quarters-human, five-sixteeths-human... The more human a character is, the less illusion they need to pass themselves off as normal, but the less magical power they possess. Particularly "thin-blooded" changelings can't even see a lot of the faerie world without magical assistance. This somehow eventually loops around to create merlins, who, as the name suggests, have quite the magical kick but in a different form than purebloods.
• Healing Factor: Toby heals faster than a human would and even faster than most fae after Amandine's intervention
• Healing Spring: Any Undine's spring has this effect.
• Heal It with Blood: The titular heroine and her fae species the Dochas Sidhe have blood which they can they use to heal themselves from any injury through regeneration. Dochas Sidhe blood can also be used in the creation of potions to heal or regenerate lost limbs.
• Her Heart Will Go On: Toby has lost a lot over the course of the series: her family, her human husband and daughter, fourteen years of her life (due to being trapped as a fish), her lover, a good chunk of her humanity... She always pushes forward regardless, though it takes a geas to get her moving again after the fish thing.
• Heroic BSoD: Several characters get hit with this at the conclusion of Sleep No More after Titania's defeated and the real Faerie is restored. Characters who saw themselves at their worst in Titania's Faerie are left guilt-ridden and suffering PTSD. Quentin and Simon in particular get hit hard, with the former now seeing a therapist (and waking up screaming some nights) while the latter's spending more and more time in the Undersea (with Toby fearing her Father's going to end up relocating there permanently and never come out.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Connor the Selkie jumped in front of a projectile meant for October's daughter Gillian. Subverted as it just got him killed, because another arrow hits her immediately afterward.
  • Despite Toby and the Luidaeg begging otherwise, Simon Torquill takes on the immense and horrifying debt incurred by his daughter August who promised the Luidaeg something that sounds simple; the magic takes the most painful possible interpretation.
• He's Dead, Jim: The fae don't handle death well, but they can tell when someone's died: "She was cold and didn't respond to us calling her name!"
• The Hidden Hour: Midnight is considered the best time to do death magic and blood magic.
• Historical Rap Sheet: Oleander has one that scares even adult fae. Rumor has it she was responsible for half the assassinations among the fae in the past century.
• Honorary Uncle:
  • Toby is "Auntie Birdie" to all of Mitch and Stacy's kids.
  • Sylvester to Gillian, before Toby was trapped in the koi pond.
• Identical Twin ID Tag: May's blue and magenta hair streaks, although they vanish whenever Toby gets too close to mortal danger. She temporarily removes them in A Red-Rose Chain to make herself draw less attention. In later books, May stops changing to match Toby's appearance, and Toby herself looks different because of her blood shifting, so they now just look like sisters, not twins.
• Identity Absorption: The night-haunts. They keep the identity for an equivalent amount of time to the person's life out of respect.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: All the book titles come from Shakespeare:
  • Rosemary and Rue from The Winter's Tale
  • A Local Habitation from A Midsummer Night's Dream
  • An Artificial Night from Romeo and Juliet
  • Late Eclipses from King Lear
  • One Salt Sea from Henry V
  • Ashes of Honor from Henry VIII
  • Chimes at Midnight from Henry IV, Part 2
  • The Winter Long also from The Winter's Tale
  • A Red-Rose Chain from Venus and Adonis
  • Once Broken Faith from Henry VI Part 3
  • The Brightest Fell from MacBeth
  • Night and Silence from A Midsummer Night's Dream
  • The Unkindest Tide from Two Gentlemen of Verona
• If I Can't Have You…: In Sleep No More and The Innocent Sleep, this is part of Amandine's motive for working with Titania. It's payback for the ending of A Killing Frost, when Simon divorced her (and October and August joined him and severed ties with their mother for good). Titania's illusion thus has given Amandine the means to forcibly reunite her family (and get August back) and to punish both October and Simon (in the latter's case by Titania using him as the primary sacrifice of her Ride.
• If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: Tybalt recognizes Quentin hinting at it in "No Sooner Met". Quentin says his interrogation of the Cait Sidhe is nothing compared to what May Daye has in store for him.
• Immortality Begins at Twenty: Closer to somewhere between 25-30, but the trope is in full effect. Genrally Fae (pureblood or changeling) children don't naturally age a lot slower than human ones (albeit their physical age is a lot more prone to reflect their mental one) but they stop when reaching adulthood. There are exceptions to the rule, though: Firstborns can look whatever age they want, and Oleander somehow never visibly aged out of her late teens despite being mentally an adult (and literally being 900 years old).
• Immortality Hurts: Toby's Healing Factor (that may or may not grant her actual immortality) comes with enhanced sensitivity to pain because her pain sensors also heal faster meaning she never goes numb of pain.
• Immortals Fear Death: If a pure blood dies it accepted practice not to speak their name in Faerie society afterword. Disease and old age are nigh impossible for pure bloods but despair and violence are possibilites, so the cleverest of them take a lot of time setting up countermeasures.
• Inevitable Mutual Betrayal: Oleander and Raysel at the end of Late Eclipses, though Oleander wasn't expecting it from Raysel
• Insult of Endearment: Several, most prominently "Little fish" from Tybalt towards Toby, "Kitty-cat" from the Luidaeg toward Tybalt.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Toby has a wide variety of these, given the long-lived nature of the fae.
• Interspecies Romance: Most romances in this series are between different lines of the Fae or between Fae, Changelings, and/or humans. Extra points go to the Lordens for having a land fae marrying a sea fae.
• Involuntary Shapeshifting: Toby spent fourteen years as a fish in a koi pond.
• Irrational Hatred: Both Julie and Raysel hate Toby for things that were out of her control, although Raysel at least has the excuse of being deeply traumatized and constantly attacked by her own biology.
• I Shall Taunt You: Toby does this in One Salt Sea to throw the kidnapper off balance.
• I Should Have Been Better: Toby about any of her failures.
• It's Personal:
  • Raysel goes too far in One Salt Sea when she kidnaps Gilly.
  • Titania in Sleep No More. While permanently reality warping Faerie was always Titania's endgame, it's made clear she also intentionally structured the "new" Faerie to punish Toby and everyone and everything she cares about.
  • Prior to The Innocent Sleeep, Tybalt had no love for his then-future and eventual mother-in-law (thanks to a combination of the events of The Brightest Fell and the neglect and cruetly October endured growing up as Amandine's daughter. However, that grudge transforms into a burning hatred when it's revealed that Amandine wasn't brainwashed by Titania's illusion and was a willing, eager collaborator in all the suffering October and their friends and family endured. Before they go chasing after Titania's Ride, Tybalt vows to Amandine he's gonna kill her when this is all over if it's the last thing he ever does.
• It Was a Gift: After the events at ALH, Quentin was gifted with pet hippocampi.
• I Want Grandkids: Toby guesses this about Luna and quickly realizes it's implausible.
• Janitor Impersonation Infiltration: How Oleander got into Shadowed Hills in Late Eclipses.
• Jurisdiction Friction: Used against the Tea Gardens whenever possible to try to force them to give up their independence.
• Just Giving Orders: One of the major laws is to never kill pureblood fae. Hence, following the letter of the law, the villains of Once Broken Faith have their hands clean while the servant whom they blackmailed to kill purebloods would be condemned to die although she takes them with her instead in a suicide leap. Toby appeals to a room full of pureblood nobles that the villains were counting on this when their servant would inevitably be caught.
• Kangaroo Court: The Queen of the Mists tries this on Toby in Late Eclipses.
• Kill It with Fire: This is one of the humanity's potential reactions to the truth of the Fae (which is why the Fae are so secretive), the other being They Would Cut You Up.
  • This is also one of the crueler Fae punishments for breakers of Oberon's Law. They get tied to a tree and burn to death.
  • This is usually how the Fae cover up the death of a Changeling's human parent and the Changeling, if they choose their human parent.
• Klingon Promotion: Generally, Cait Sidhe princes become king by defeating the previous one in combat (which usually also involves killing them, as Tybalt did to his father).
• Kryptonite Is Everywhere: Toby's ability to "ride" the blood of the recently deceased to access their recent memories should, in theory, answer Whodunnit quickly every time, if not necessarily why. Of course, frequently this doesn't work for one reason or another - the blood might be wiped clean of memories, or the memory might be edited somehow, or the victim might have been prevented from seeing their attacker, and so on.
• Land of Faerie: The Summerlands are the last of the Faerie realms accessible to most fae after Oberon closed Deeper Faerie. There are also numerous knowes, Pocket Dimensions in between the Summerlands and the mortal world.
• Leave the Two Lovebirds Alone: Melly's response to Etienne's attempts to take Toby and Connor to see Sylvester in Late Eclipses.
• Light Is Not Good: Titania's children are much more bloodthirsty than Maeve's, even though Titania is the Summer Queen.
• Little Bit Beastly: The Cait Sidhe and Kitsune look like people but have cat and fox ears (and tails) respectively. Cu Sidhe are similar to Cait Sidhe, but as dogs instead of cats.
• Long-Lived: Even the unluckiest of changelings get centuries of healthy life, to mortals this seems like a lot but the oldest purebloods can measure their lives in continental drift so to them chnaglings are something like brief lived curiosities.
• Long-Lost Relative:
  • The Luidaeg is Toby's aunt!
  • In Ashes of Honor, Etienne's daughter, who has been hidden from him for her entire life, is revealed to him.
  • In Chimes At Midnight, Toby discovers some long lost relatives of King Gilad.
  • In The Winter Long, it's revealed that Simon Torquill is October's stepfather and through his marriage to Amandine, she has a half sister named August.
  • In A Red-Rose Chain, we discover Walther's long lost entire family.
  • In Night And Silence, we discover Toby's grandmother is Janet from The Ballad of Tam Lin, and is currently going by the name Miranda Marks: Cliff's wife and Gillian's stepmother.
• Loophole Abuse: If nobody's squeaking by on a technicality, it's not Faerie. The crowning example comes at the end of Night and Silence, when the Luidaeg stacks loophole on top of loophole to save the entirely-human Gillian from elf-shot by turning her into a Selkie.
• Love Martyr: Luna is this for Rayseline after Rayseline's attempt at murdering her.
• Love-Obstructing Parents: Connor's forbid him from seeing Toby, because she's a changeling and therefore beneath his station (even though her mother is a Firstborn).
• MacGuffin:
  • In Rosemary and Rue it's the chest Toby entrusts to Tybalt.
  • In Ashes of Honor, there are two: Chelsea is one; Riordan's necklace the other.
• Magical Counterfeiting: Toby occasionally turns mushrooms into coins when she needs them.
• The Magic Versus Technology War: ALH is working on making this a thing of the past with things like enchanted cell phones.
• Magical Sensory Effect: The magic signature, a scent that is emitted after magic is used or performed by a Faerie or Changeling. Each individual has a scent that is as unique to them as a fingerprint would be. The Heroine October Daye produces the scent of copper and cut grass for example when she uses her powers well her main enemy, Evening Winterrose has the scent of Roses and snow.
• Mama Bear:
  • Toby frequently rushes to the rescue of not only her own, but other people's children, and Oberon help anything that gets in her way.
  • The trait runs in the family. In Late Eclipses, we see that Amandine will mess you up if you threaten her child.
  • Dianda Lorden is a hot-tempered Action Mom and loves a good fight.
• The Masquerade: Fairies do not go out in public without illusions in order to maintain this. According to Toby, it's because most of them fear that the humans would kill any Fae that showed themselves, as apparently happened in the past, or that Fae would be kidnapped and vivisected to learn how they tick.
• The Matchmaker: A cultural trait of Hobs. They indulge in it almost as much as cleaning.
• Magic Mushroom:
  • In The Brightest Fell Toby and company discover that in the Summerlands, puffball mushrooms make great pixie security systems for human size fae.
• Meaningful Rename/That Man Is Dead: In "Rat-Catcher", Rand renames himself Tybalt when he becomes King of Cats.
• Mermanity Ensues: In One Salt Sea, the Luidaeg makes a Transformation Trinket for Toby so she'll be able to breathe underwater. It also has the side effect of temporarily turning her into a merrow, which Toby doesn't find out until she uses it.
• Micro Monarchy: Fae populations are already low by human standards, and rule over pretty limited geographic areas, but Tybalt wins this one. After becoming King of Cats in Londinium, he expels every other cait sidhe from his realm to save them from the Great Fire of London (he sticks around to keep anyone else from taking the throne and bringing everyone back). For a decade, he's the sole inhabitant of his own kingdom.
• Miles to Go Before I Sleep: Toby, often in the last third of any given book.
• Missing Mom:
  • Toby became one without her consent when she was turned into a fish for 14 years.
  • Amandine may as well be missing most of the time, though she does show up when the chips are down in Late Eclipses.
  • Also Amandine's mother herself. Because it's Janet. Yes, that Janet.
• Mistaken for Cheating: Connor and Toby. Not without reason, since they are old flames.
• Moment Killer: The Luidaeg takes great pleasure in dropping by when people (especially Toby and Tybalt) would start doing... something else. Some of them know this so actively try to not have moments around her.
• Monster Progenitor: All of the Firstborn to varying extents, but particularly the children of Maeve.
• Motive Rant: Raysel gives one to Toby in Late Eclipses.
• Muggle and Magical Love Triangle: Cliff (the Muggle) and Devin (the Magical) for Toby; she chose Cliff.
• Mundane Utility: A given, since purebloods don't usually use human technology. A common example is that knowe kitchens are chock-full of meals held in stasis just in case the nobles wake up with a sudden craving.
• Mouse World: The pixie village in the trees of the Summerlands. Pixies also possess pixie magic that shrinks human sized fae down to their size, so they can terrorize them.
• Muggles: The humans who wander the world unaware that the faerie are real. Toby worked among them in Rosemary and Rue and stayed in a hotel full of them in A Local Habitation.
• Muggles Do It Better: Toby points out that for all the wonders of Faerie, it took mortals to come up with flush toilets. There are also small magics the books call Marshwater Charms that actively work better, or in some cases work at all, when attempted by normal humans. Janet managed to poison half the fae population of Berkley with one by accident.
• Mushroom House: The pixie village in the Summerlands is made from puffball mushrooms that give off knock out spores.

N-Z

• The Nameless: The former Queen of the Mists, as revealed in A Red-Rose Chain. She sold it in exchange for power, which she then lost thanks to Toby.
• Never Say "Die": Played with; the fae, left unmolested, are pretty much immortal. Not so much the changelings. When murder happens, though, among the nobility, there are explicit and elaborate forms full of flowery euphemisms for announcing when someone has died. For brevity, these are sometimes shortened to "(Person) has stopped their dancing."
• Never Split the Party: Toby knows this, and so does her young assistant. Too bad people refuse to stay together...
  • Lampshaded by May in Ashes of Honor who flat out asks why Toby is splitting the party Scooby-Doo style.
• News Travels Fast: For Toby's great dismay. And not only the news of her deeds, by the time of book #13 people gossip about her love life in Hallifax, Cannada.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The curse Oberon cast on Titania was supposed to prevent her from hurting anyone else. Unfortunately, the provision forbidding her from leaving a legacy has led to five hundred years of her being compelled to kill her own children as soon as they get old enough to have kids themselves. The curse keeps her at the power level of the ordinary changeling she believes herself to be (mostly), but it doesn't change her essential nature, so all of her children are Firstborn, which is a pretty big legacy.
• Nigh-Invulnerable: As of the latest books, Toby herself, thanks to a Healing Factor strong enough to recover from just about anything including being stabbed in the heart.
• Non-Linear Character: Mary the Roane sees the future (that's the racial power of the Roane), but she isn't exactly good at telling her premonitions of the future and what she's currently doing apart. Which means she'll say things that only make sense later sort of the basis of interacting with her.
• No Periods, Period: Played with. Toby implies "female troubles" to get a male to quit trying to ask her questions.
• The Nose Knows:
  • Tybalt, though he repeatedly stresses that he's not a bloodhound.
  • Madden isn't a bloodhound either, but at least he's a Cu Sidhe.
  • Where magic is concerned, Toby herself. To the point she can smell through glamours. This is implied to be another trait of the Dochas Sidhe.
• Not Allowed to Grow Up: The fate of the children stolen by Blind Michael.
• The Oathbreaker: Changelings have a reputation for this, whether rightly or no.
• Odd Name, Normal Nickname: October goes by Toby. Her mother Amandine is sometimes called "Amy", mainly by her sister the Luidaeg. And then there's Antigone (the Luidaeg's real name), who's sometimes called "Annie".
• Offered the Crown: Toby gets An Offer You Can't Refuse to become Countess of Goldengreen. Sounds awesome, but it puts her life way at risk, due to taking her out from under Sylvester's authority and making her the vassal of the Queen directly instead. She passes it off to Dean in "One Salt Sea."
• Oh, Crap!: Toby gets hit with an evil pie in Chimes at Midnight. Not such an "oh crap" moment by itself, except the filling is instantly and unbreakably addictive, requiring her to eat more or starve to death in withdrawal.
• Oh, My Gods!: The Fae swear by their sacred trees ("Oak and ash!"), by the names of their progenitors ("Maeve's tits!"), or by other terms sacred to them ("Root and branch!"). Leads to funny, as the Luidaeg, who is actually the offspring of Oberon and Maeve, will swear by "Dad's balls" and "Mom's tits".
• The Older Immortal: The Luidaeg - and pretty much any other Firstborn. Toby comments in one book about the inadvisability of taunting someone who has firsthand experience of continental drift.
• The One Who Made It Out: Toby is this for Home. She's the first changeling to be knighted, when most of the other kids from Home end up as street criminals, just as purebloods expect them to.
• Open Secret: That Amandine and Simon are married is pretty much common knowledge among those who were at the court under King Gilad. They obviously assume this is true for everybody, when it's very much not the case thanks to both time and Sylvester purposefully not telling to younger people especially Toby. This along with Fantastic Racism led to the widespread belief that Sylvester knighted her for something other than merit.
• Open Sesame: The phrase actually opens one of the doors of Goldengreen in Rosemary and Rue.
• Oracular Urchin: Karen eventually, once her oneiromancer powers develop.
• Our Pixies Are Different: Pixies are human-looking fae with wings who are about four inches tall and were created by Maeve in an attempt to have something to keep her happy. She created them by using drops of her own blood and infusing it into tiny stones which upon coming into contact with the blood, became the eggs of the first Pixies. Pixies have gone on since then to have their own society and customs away from the rest of the human-sized fae.
• Out-of-Character Alert: If Toby is cheerful in the daytime, be wary and beware.
• Out of Job, into the Plot: After being turned into a fish for 14 years, Toby wants nothing to do with the fairy world, and works a Soul-Sucking Retail Job at a Safeway. Then she finds out The Call Left a Message (literally, a geas through her answering machine) and gets involved. Due to circumstances, she gets fired from the Safeway after she fails to show up, and never looks back.
• Papa Wolf: There are several males in the series whose kids you just really don't want to mess with under any circumstances.
  • Sylvester Torquill, toward Toby and his own daughter Rayseline.
  • Sir Etienne, toward his own daughter, Chelsea.
  • Tybalt, toward his nephew Raj.
• The Pardon: At the end of Late Eclipses, Sylvester delivers one, signed by the High King himself, to save Toby from execution. Given Quentin's true identity, it's not hard to tell how he arranged it.
• Parental Substitute: Sylvester toward Toby.
• Past Experience Nightmare: Toby has nightmares about being a fish after spending fourteen years trapped as one.
• Peaceful in Death: Most of the people who died at ALH.
• Phone Call from the Dead: October Daye gets her Call to Adventure in Rosemary and Rue by receiving a phone call from the murder victim, who happens to be a fae, and who geases Toby into solving the case.
• Pie in the Face: In Chimes at Midnight, The False Queen gets Toby addicted to goblin fruit by having one of her men hit her in the face with a pie made of the stuff.
• Pink Elephants: Toby hopes that a shrieking mermaid in a wheelchair will be taken for this, rather than a sign of the existence of Faerie.
  • In Ashes of Honor, they try to convince a human police officer that he's been given hallucinogenic drugs. He's not buying it.
• Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: The Duchy of Ships is full on fantasy pirate themed, we don't see the inhabitants engage in any actual piracy though. Except maybe Captain Pete, who October strongly suspect pirating cable TV.
• Please Spare Him, My Liege!: Raj backs Toby up in asking Tybalt not to kill Julie for attacking her
• Please Wake Up: Toby to Tybalt
• Pointy Ears: All of the fae have them.
• Poisoned Weapons: Oleander's MO, later Raysel's
  • Several characters use arrows dipped in elf-shot, which sends fae to sleep for a hundred years. It's fatal to humans and changelings, though. Sometime it's altered to kill purebloods as well.
• Poison Is Evil: Oleander
• Political Hostage: Part of this is in the fostering system, it ensures another kingdom is interested in that one's survival and it provides protection to the hostage from their native Decadent Court. Sometimes it is explicitly a measure to keep kingdoms in line.
• Posthumous Character: Played With the Nighthaunts have their own identities but they can get lost in the identity of the form they wear. Sometimes they can give testimony about how "they" died but the person is absolutely dead.
• Powered by a Forsaken Child: Subverted. April is ALH's intercom system. She was a dryad who lost her tree, so they worked her into the circuitry of a server to save her.
  • The endangered child in Ashes of Honor is pretty much used as a generator for teleportation magic to the point of being used up.
• Power Incontinence: Toby explains in "No Sooner Met" that she now prefers her steak well done because her Dochas Sidhe Blood Magic will treat her to the cow's last moments if she eats it rare enough to still be bleeding. It was mentioned earlier in the series that riding someone else's death could very well kill Toby if she can't pull free of the psychometry in time..
  • Chelsea Aimes also has a major case of this. While at first her teleportation powers functioned just fine, they quickly spiraled out of control to the point where she can't stop teleporting. Even the evil noble trying to use her strength as a tool can't contain her, just make sure she'll cycle back to the same place.
• Power Nullifier: Mixed up by Walther for Toby in Book 6 in case it worked on the child Toby was hired to find. Unfortunately, due to extreme injury, Toby didn't get to tell anyone that there was a counteragent to it that could be used within a certain time limit for anyone who got the nullifier on them besides the target. Whoops. Lucky thing it's not permanent.
• Preserve Your Gays: It turns out that January's consciousness was digitized just before her death. Since the nighthaunts never did show up, April is able to put her back in her body.
• The Promise: Part and parcel of faerie magic. Extremely Serious Business.
• Psychic Nosebleed: Migraines are a constant hazard for Toby after she uses magic.
• Psychopomp: May and Jazz, in different ways.
• Public Execution: Toby barely escaped one, Dugan wasn't so lucky. As of Night And Silence, this no longer applies to Dugan, on account of he wasn't actually executed. Sadly.
• Rags to Royalty: Luna looks like this but the reality is...more complicated. Toby could be this (started as a street kid), but she steadfastly refused to take or gave up her chances (got several) that would raise her over the rank of knight/hero.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Quentin's parents the High King and Queen. While they make some blunders, such as confirming the regency of the False Queen, they are surprisingly down-to-earth and very much against the anti-changeling bigotry common in faerie. Unsurprising, given that the High Queen started out as a changeling, though she was changed to be a pureblood using a hope chest. They do their best to provide an upbringing for their son that will teach him better than those prejudices.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: The Luidaeg gives a short but satisfying one to Amandine at the end of A Killing Frost, telling her that all her broken relationships are her fault for treating people like objects she owns, and that she has no grounds to complain because she never tried to be better or even acknowledged that she should be.
• Reclining Reigner: The Queen in the Mists. Tybalt has his share of this too... at least he has the excuse of being a cat.
• Refused Reunion: Toby's ex-boyfriend and her daughter Gillian refuse to have anything to do with her when she resurfaces after a fourteen-year disappearance, unaware that she was actually forcefully transformed and left in a koi pond. Gillian and Toby are forced back into contact in One Salt Sea but remain estranged, not least because people keep attacking Gillian to get to Toby. They eventually have something of a reconciliation after it's revealed that Toby's human grandmother had been manipulating Gillian to drive the two of them apart, due to said grandmother having a hatred of the fae.
• Releasing from the Promise: Toby knows that if she asked Sylvester to release her from fealty to him, he'd do so. She'd never ask.
• Reluctant Ruler: According to some of the fae history unearthed in Toby's adventures, many of the Kings and Queens of the fae were unwilling to rise to the positions of power they ended up in due to the tendency of royalty to be assassinated by others who want the throne. Most recently this is true for the true heir to the Kingdom of the Mists, who has been terrorized all her life by the pretender to the throne.
• Resurrective Immortality: Implied. According to Jin (the healer of Sylvester's Court) Toby died in final confrontation of Once Broken Faith, this prompts her to recount all the "near misses" she had in the books... and starts suspecting that her Healing Factor reached this point and as long her body is reasonably intact (not burnt to ashes, decapitated, etc.) she'll regenerate back to life.
• Rhyming Wizardry: Toby uses Nursery Rhymes to cast spells, though she usually subverts the last line or two to have something to do with what she needs the spell to do. Quentin's spells are similar, though he usually uses songs from his favorite band, Great Big Sea.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something:
  • Sylvester and Luna Torquill of Shadowed Hills. The Torquills are very popular and are very active in running their Duchy.
  • The Lordens, and their son Dean at Goldengreen Toby as well, for the brief time she has Goldengreen
  • Quentin, who it turns out is the Crown Prince of the whole western hemisphere.
• Rule of Seven: Brought up as the length of time it took for Toby to be declared dead. Interestingly, she was gone as a fish 14 (twice seven) years. It is also the amount of time in the mundane world that many legalities recognize as having had to pass before someone is declared legally dead.
• Rule of Three: Threes are very important to the fae.
• Sanity Slippage: During Toby's missing 14 years, Sylvester had a back-and-forth case stemming from the grief of missing his wife, his child, and one of his most beloved knights who is his brothers stepdaughter.
• Science Is Useless: Averted by Walther, and also by Karen's sister Cassandra, who's studying the physics of knowes.
• Second Love: Tybalt confesses that his love for Toby is this.
• Seeing Through Another's Eyes: Blind Michael sees through the eyes of his Riders and the children he's abducted to force into The Wild Hunt. When they ride on Halloween night, the Riders also see through all of each other's eyes at once.
• Self-Made Orphan: Rayseline attempts this.
  • This is also the backstory of the selkies. Eira Rosynhwyr manipulated a group of merlins into murdering most of the roane and skinning them as a path to immortality. The merlins' children, horrified at this crime, killed them all, took the skins to the Luidaeg, and begged her for mercy, which she granted in the form of creating the selkies.
• Selkies and Wereseals: Selkies and Roane are two fae races. The selkies' tragic origin story appears in one volume. The Roane were the original race, being fae who could turn into seals at will and had the gift of prophecy. Merlins, humans with fae ancestry, were told by Eira Rosynhwyr, one of the firstborn, that if they killed the Roane and took their skins they could gain the Roanes' power for themselves. They did so, but their children were horrified by it and murdered their own parents then took the skins to The Luidaeg, the firstborn fae who was mother to the Roane and prepared to offer their own lives to her in order to avoid her wrath falling upon anyone else. Instead, she took pity on them and bound the skins of her own children to them to make them the first selkies. In The Unkindest Tide, October's Blood Magic is used to attach the selkie skins to them and changed them all fully into Roane, ressurecting the race.
• Sex Shifter: Pureblooded Gean-Cannah are always a brother and sister Sharing a Body, one of whom is active during the day, and one at night.
• Shapeshifting Lover: Both of Toby's major love interests, Connor (a selkie) and Tybalt (a cait sidhe).
• She Cleans Up Nicely: Toby, with help from Stacy, May and Luna.
• Ship Sinking: In "Full of Briars", Quentin explains the reasons he and Raj will never be boyfriends (though they do flirt sometimes). Both are princes, Raj of the Court of Dreaming Cats, Quentin of the entire Westlands (though the cait sidhe are technically not subject to the High King), and neither can be seen to be more loyal to another kingdom than their own, which dating each other would imply.
• Shout-Out:
  • The aforementioned Idiosyncratic Episode Naming, with every book and short story named after a Shakespeare quote.
  • Scooby-Doo: see You Meddling Kids below.
  • Toby also apparently reads xkcd in her spare time.
  Toby: The First Rule of Tautology Club is the first rule of Tautology Club.
  • Toby, being more long-lived than a human, has also had time to read X-Men. She tells Tybalt to pop his claws — a turn of phrase usually reserved to describe Wolverine.
  • Quentin, being from Canada, is a fan of Great Big Sea, and quotes their songs to cast some of his spells.
  • In A Local Habitation, most of the action takes place in the city of Fremont, California, or in the Fae parlance, the County of Tamed Lightning. The main factory of Tesla Inc. for manufacturing its electric cars is located in Fremont.
  • In Ashes of Honor, Toby mentions May comparing Toby and the Luidaeg's relationship to that of Westley and the Dread Pirate Roberts in The Princess Bride ("I'll most likely kill you in the morning").
  • Chelsea's bedroom has Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, and Firefly posters all over it.
  • When Toby asks Tybalt to "do whatever hoodoo you need to do", he says, "I'm the King of Cats, October, not the King of Goblins".
  • Arden mentions worrying about "citrus thieves", which immediately brings to mind the iconic "lemon stealing whores" viral video.
  • In "Full of Briars", May compares her creation to that of Dawn from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
• Simultaneous Arcs: In a first for the series, 2023's Sleep No More and The Innocent Sleep are a duology. Both run parallel to each other, focusing on Tybalt and October navgiating Titania's altered reality.
• Snark-to-Snark Combat: Toby and Tybalt frequently have entire conversations in sarcasm and passive-aggressive sniping. They're not alone either, just the most prone. Luidaeg can engage in this, so does Quentin... and many more.
• Something about a Rose: Roses show up everywhere in this series. They're used in alchemical potions, travel between realms (the "Rose Road"), in magical bindings, to send messages, as symbolism, you name it. Two important characters have roses as part of their magical signature scent. Other characters are basically dryads, but for roses instead of trees. One of Toby's "cats" is actually an animate rosebush.
• So Proud of You: Toby refers to this to Quentin in Ashes of Honor
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: The Luidaeg. She is the Sea Witch, old as time (Toby thinks she observed continental drift), who carefully cultivated an image of a monster to be feared, and make no mistake she is all what she claims to be (can't lie and all). But she is also incredibly lonely and a mother mourning her lost children (the Roane).
• Speak of the Devil: Before they travel into an elf-shot Dianda's dreams in Once Broken Faith, Karen warns Toby to not speak of anything related to Evening/Eira, since it will indirectly get her attention through Karen's oneiromancer powers. Unfortunately, neither of them warn Dianda, who name-drops Goldengreen (Evening's former knowe), causing Evening to hijack their meeting.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: Pureblood and human relationships are almost always star-crossed. Toby refers to this as the "faerie bride" act, and notes that it never ends well. Except for Bridget and Etienne, that is.
• Stealth Pun: So the story proper of book #1 starts when Toby escapes the koi pond where she was a fish for 14 years... or we could say it's truly a Fish out of Water tale. You can groan now.
• Suicide Mission: Luna sends Toby on one against her father.
• Supernatural Phone: The landlines and cellphones owned by the faerie are all magicked for privacy and to work under odd magical conditions where technology ordinarily would not function, generally by the folks at ALH Computing.
  • The Luidaeg's in particular deserves special mention as it is weird even by faerie standards. Beyond not actually being connected to anything, in order to dial it Toby has to press random numbers in random patterns while doing a spell and then gets odd noise before the connection will finally go through.
• Synchronization: May freaks out when this starts happening again between her and Toby, because it means Toby is in mortal danger.
• Tae Kwon Door: When Toby and Quentin are trying to leave ALH Computing, the portcullis at the gate crashes down on her car, almost killing them.
• Taking the Bullet: At the climax of One Salt Sea, Connor jumps in front of Gillian to block a poisoned elf-shot arrow.
• Talk About the Weather: Toby tries this on Tybalt in Ashes of Honor. It's about as effective as such conversational gambits usually are.
• Talking in Your Dreams: An oneiromancer power. Toby swiftly grows used to dream-visits by Karen after the latter is revealed as an Oneiromancer in An Artificial Night.
• Tangled Family Tree: All of Faerie is descended from three people: Oberon, Titania, and Maeve. Though Amandine's mother might be an as yet unknown fourth.
• Technicolor Fire: A Candela's Merry Dancers
• Teleportation: The province of the Tuatha De Danaan, though several other types of fae have the ability to some extent.
• Temporal Theme Naming: So far, in addition to October, we've seen a January, an April, a May, a June, and an August. January and April are related by adoption. May was originally October's Fetch. In the third book, Lily comments, "Whatever will we do when the months of the year are used entirely?" Word of God says that in Faerie, it's rude to name someone directly after someone else, but honoring somebody by using a name with a related meaning is acceptable. October's name is somehow connected with September Torquill, January's mother.
  • Gillian means "July". Word of God says this is deliberate.
  • Evening Winterrose and her sister, Dawn. who is actually her daughter since Evening's actually Firstborn.
• They Died Because of You: Easiest way to guilt trip Toby
• Think Nothing of It: As Faerie thinks of thanks as implying further obligation from the party receiving the thanks, anything that even smacks of gratitude gets this from the fae; the only exception is in the case where there's already a bond of fealty between the two parties.
• Time Skip: A few months have passed between Rosemary and Rue and A Local Habitation. And An Artificial Night takes place in 2010. Word of God says the 2014 date is a mistake that somehow escaped all proofreading.
• Title Drop: Rosemary and Rue refers to the bouquet of flowers that Toby places on Dare's grave at the end of the novel
• Touched by Vorlons: Toby gets a massive powerup and finds out that she's not Daoine Sidhe when Amandine saves her from dying by elfshot. She becomes less human and starts to resemble her mother more.
• Trail Of Breadcrumbs: Toby wishes for this on one of her adventures into deeper Faerie.
• Transformation Trauma: Toby in Book 1 after the events at the Gardens.
  • All the children Blind Michael warped into riders and ridden, particularly Katie, who remained aware as he slowly turned her into a horse.
• Too Hungry to Be Polite: Toby, often.
• *Twang* Hello: Toby saves Patrick Lorden from this in their first meeting.
• Unable to Cry: Once Toby realized how long she had been gone.
• Undead Tax Exemption: Double Subverted. Toby was turned into a fish for fourteen years, during which time nearly everyone, human and fae, assumed she was dead. When she turns back into herself, she's taken to the police station after someone finds an unconscious naked woman in the park. She tells them who she is, only to be told that October Daye went missing and was declared dead 14 years ago. Then her old benefactor Evening Winterrose arrives, and is somehow able to convince them that she really is who she says she is. Leaving aside the 14 year disappearance, as a changeling Toby ages more slowly than humans, so it would be hard to convince any Muggles of her actual birth date.
• Undying Loyalty: Toby doesn't just work for Sylvester - he's her liege, and she honors, loves, and respects him for his person as well as his office.
• Unholy Matrimony: Oleander and Simon seem to have this, even without the actual matrimony.
• Unusual Euphemism: Fae swear by their own gods, and they swear on the things that are sacred to them. They don't completely fail to use human profanity, it just mingles in.
• Unlucky Childhood Friend: Connor and Toby, both, to each other. They had a thing when they were teens, but his parents didn't want him dating a changeling, and when she got back from being turned into a fish, he was in a Political Marriage to Rayseline. Zig-Zagged later on. After Raysel goes off the rails and tries to kill Luna, her marriage to Connor is annulled, and Connor and Toby can be together. But then he dies saving Gillian.
• Unwanted Spouse: Connor to Rayseline, and vice versa.
• The Usurper: the Queen in the Mists killed the last true king over a century ago, and everyone was too afraid to confront her about their suspicions.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Selkies and Cait Sidhe, among others.
• Wainscot Society: Many fae live in the Land of Faerie, but very few don't interact with the human world at all. The entrances to knowes are there, and some, like Toby, outright live among humans, putting on illusions to appear human when they need to.
• War Is Hell: A major part of One Salt Sea, even though Toby succeeds in stopping the war in time.
• Wham Episode: The author herself has stated that every fourth book is basically one of these.
• Wham Line: In Late Eclipses:

  ...if he'd said "By the way, you're not Daoine Sidhe...", I would have laughed him out of the room.

• What Could Possibly Go Wrong?: Tempting Fate is pretty much at its worst when the faerie do it.
• Wheelchair Antics: In One Salt Sea, Toby rides Dianda's wheelchair (with Dianda still in it) down a steep hill and into San Francisco Bay to get away from assassins.
• Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?: Toby likens the Luidaeg to her own personal Q from James Bond, since she provides Toby with needed transformation spells, information, etc.
• Whole-Plot Reference: Sleep No More and The Innocent Sleep are the October Daye version of Age of Apocalypse, with reality altered, heroes having become villains (and vice-versa), and characters trying to restore the real world while convincing people this isn't how things are meant to be.
• The Wild Hunt: The villain of An Artificial Night is the mad Firstborn Blind Michael, who once a century abducts fae and human children to replenish the Wild Hunt's numbers. The fae children become his Riders; the humans aren't as lucky, being turned into the horses.
• Will Talk for a Price: In One Salt Sea, Bucer O'Malley gives Toby the information she needs once she ups her offer to $200.
• Villains Out Shopping: Treasa Riordan has an active World of Warcraft account and schedules court business around raids.
• A Year and a Day: Walther's anti-magic potion lasts this long.
• You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious:
  • Evening, who only ever called Toby 'October', resorts to calling her Toby in her last answering machine message.
  • Tybalt has a number of nicknames for Toby, several of which she hates, but only calls her October when he's very worried about her.
  • May would also only use Toby's full name in dire circumstances.
• You Have Failed Me: Played with. Overdramatic Etienne, wracked with guilt over a slip of discretion during Toby's missing years makes him feel this way, although Sylvester Torquill is one of the kindest, nicest, and most forgiving of the fae — and that's saying a lot given how nasty most of the powerful ones are.
• You Meddling Kids: Invoked by Toby herself, when the Big Bad of One Salt Sea got called out as such. She really does have meddling kids, too: Quentin and Raj.
• You Must Be Cold: Six pages into A Local Habitation, Tybalt lends Toby his leather jacket because "You look cold." As of the end of Late Eclipses, three books later, she still has it. Tybalt goes off with it and then returns it via May in One Salt Sea.

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