May Daye (formerly called Mai by the night-haunts) is a recurring character in the October Daye series of novels and stories by Seanan McGuire. She currently resides in Toby's house in San Francisco with Toby, Quentin, and May's lover Jazz.
About[]
May is, to all intents and purposes, and legally speaking for the mundane world, Toby's twin sister. The truth of her existence is that she is Toby's Fetch—a perfect copy of her that is supposed to guide her on after death. She was created when the night-haunt wearing Dare's face drank Toby's blood in order to give her time to set her affairs in order.[1]
May has all of Toby's memories but none of the muscle memory or practical skill that goes along with it. As a result, she is useless at combat and driving even though she understands the theory of both.[2] She is also infamously terrible at driving, since she lacks to muscle memory to do so safely.[3] Just like Toby, she hates water; unlike Toby, she hasn't had reason to get over that aversion.[4]
As a Fetch, May is functionally a pureblood fae and nearly indestructible, although she is susceptible to elf-shot.[5][6] She is skilled at illusion magics such as glamours.
May's appearance is a mirror of Toby when she was still a weaker changeling, with brown hair, mist-gray eyes, and softly pointed ears. She differentiates herself by cropping off her hair and dyeing it a rainbow of colors, as well as wearing a range of eclectic clothing. Her makeup choices also are vibrant, compared to Toby's more subdued selections.
When Toby temporarily dies, Amandine's successful attempt at reviving Toby breaks May's connection to Toby and she's free to live her life, making her a unique Fetch.[7]
May frequently offers behind-the-scenes support during Toby's adventures. As a noncombatant, she tends to stay at home or in a safe location and relays messages between Toby and her allies, and occasionally teaches Toby some handy magical tricks for her quests.
When May was the night-haunt Mai, she held the forms many Fae, including that of Dare, Toby, and one of the servants to King Gilad who knew who Arden and Nolan Windermere were.
Biography[]
As Mai, May has been witness to centuries of Faerie history. She was present at Oberon's court when he publicly courted Janet.[8] She also thinks she may have once been someone who was familiar with the Shadowed Hills courtyard where Luna now keeps the sleeping Rayseline.[9]
In the Series[]
A Local Habitation[]
May's first appearance officially is as a night-haunt - while under her name Mai, when she was wearing Dare's face. She and her flock appear to Toby when she summons them in an attempt to figure out why the still-fae corpses of the ALH employees had not been devoured.
Inspired by Dare's latent hero worship in her blood memories, May offers to take the mandrake carrying Toby's blood and subsequently devours it, becoming a Fetch in the process.
An Artificial Night[]
May appears on Toby's doorstep. At first Toby thinks she is another doppleganger trick, and still rejects May when she she identifies herself as Toby's Fetch. May ends up hanging around Toby's house during Blind Michael's reign of terror and plays chauffeur when Toby cannot drive her own car. May is torn to realize she may have saved Toby's life from the Wild Hunt, happy to have helped but distressed to act against her own nature. When the time comes to return the children to their parents, May impersonates Toby so that they don't have to explain Toby's child-transformation to Stacy. Afterwards, they tell Stacy the truth and she embraces May as Toby's sister.
Late Eclipses[]
May has moved into Toby's spare room and has gained legal documentation as her "twin" sister. She has also made cosmetic alterations to her appearance to let her own personality shine through. She attends the Court in the Mists and helps create a distraction for Toby to escape to the Tea Gardens. Later, she helps Toby dress for the Beltane Ball and introduces Jazz as her date. As Toby races to solve her mystery, May acts as message-relayer from their home.
Toby almost dies and Amandine shifts the balance of her blood to save her. The connection between May and Toby's fates is severed and May is free to live her own life as an individual. May helps Toby's allies break her out of the Queen's prison.
Through This House[]
May helps Toby find, enter, and reclaim the knowe of Goldengreen. May discovers Evening Winterrose's cruelty toward the pixies in her territory.
One Salt Sea[]
May and Jazz hold down the fort while Toby and Tybalt are searching for the Lorden boys. She, like Toby, panics when Tybalt discovers Rayseline kidnaps Gillian.
After Toby loses both Connor and Gillian, she continues to hold down the fort while Toby mourns her losses.
Ashes of Honor[]
May becomes increasingly concerned about Toby's mental health during the goblin-fruit epidemic and the discovery of Chelsea's existence as an undocumented changeling that had been hidden from Faerie. She's aware of Tybalt's feelings of Toby and is disappointed when Toby doesn't realise it straight away.
May and Jazz are attacked by Samson due to the latter's grudge against Toby and Tybalt. She finally snaps and accuses Toby of purposely endangering her life in her grief, and the sisters eventually reconcile.
Chimes at Midnight[]
May actively assists Toby with the goblin-fruit epidemic. She defends Toby when Egil, the night-haunt carrying Devin's face, accuses Toby of the epidemic and reveals the amount of changelings who had died from it.
She becomes one of Toby's main supporters while she grapples with a goblin-fruit addiction that pushed her to her human side. Toby injures her to drink her blood to help curb her addiction. May is one of Toby's allies that the False Queen enchants under her control. The False Queen forces May to slit her throat, however the False Queen is unaware that due to her nature as a Fetch, May survived. She however has a scar on her neck that she would have to hide with a ribbon until her wound healed.
The Winter Long[]
When Jazz is hit by Simon's transformation curse, May teaches Toby to break enchantments by unravelling their spellwork. After thanking Toby, she encourages Toby to hunt Simon down before retreating to Arden's knowe to seek refuge.
A Red-Rose Chain[]
May travels with Toby to the Kingdom of Silences, disguised as her lady's maid. Rhys has her bound and later elf-shot to try to control Toby, her true nature discovered. She is awakened after Walther makes a cure.
The Brightest Fell[]
May helps host a sleepover of Quentin's friends, happily baking and keeping the teenagers fed. When Jazz and Tybalt are captured by Amandine, it is all Toby can do to convince May to stay back in Shadowed Hills rather than join the search herself.
Night and Silence[]
May insists on playing an active role in searching for Gillian, since her memories make her feel like Gillian's mother just as Toby is. She helps Toby search the UC Berkeley campus and, with Madden, discovers Janet's Courtyard.
They visit Goldengreen and May takes the dangerous knowe entrance first since she is theoretically indestructible. When it comes time to face down the false Queen, May and Quentin team up but are knocked out by elf-shot. They are both cured after the battle.
Since Jazz is healing from the trauma of Amandine's plot faster than Tybalt, May offers Toby advice on how to help their partners recover.
A Killing Frost[]
May goes with Toby to find Simon Torquill after Karen Brown calls to tell Toby that she will need to bring May and Quentin and no one else. She is injured very badly during a fall into a tree within the lightless skerry Simon held Luna and Raysel in, losing a good portion of her liver, but recovers swiftly because of her nature as a Fetch, albeit weakened from the ordeal. May is later elf-shot by Simon but is woken up by Walther Davies using a combination of the cure and the Luidaeg's blood to counteract the special blend that was used on her. Toby remarks that May had taught her the etiquette of a divorce proceeding in regards to the children choosing the parent they inherit from.
When Sorrows Come / And With Reveling[]
May teams up with Stacy and Tybalt to spearhead Toby's wedding planning. May and Stacy design a stain-proof wedding dress and spend more than a week approaching all Toby's friends to lend their magic to the enchantment. At the High Court, May leaves the heroing to Toby and her crew while she and Stacy finalize the wedding details.
Relationships[]
October Daye[]
May is Toby's Fetch, with all of Toby's memories up until the time she was created. May became a Fetch specifically because Dare looked up to Toby as a hero.[1] Initially, May was torn about helping Toby on her adventures since it goes directly against her intended purpose. However, in time Toby's wild actions cause the bond between them to split, giving them their own individual fates. Now May lives as Toby's "twin sister," providing friendship and backup on Toby's adventures. Toby views her as her sister, though not by familial ties but where it counts.
Jazz[]
Jazz and May begin dating soon after May settles into her life as Toby's sister. Jazz frequently sleeps over at the apartment and becomes a permanent housemate when they move to the Victorian house. May is nocturnal and Jazz is diurnal, but they make it work by staggering their sleeping/waking schedules. May does not like Jazz to sleep in the bed in her raven-form because May is afraid of rolling over and squashing her.[10]
Both women have a rather chaotic, colorful, packrat aesthetic. Their shared room contains lots of jewelry, clothing, and shiny items. Their idea of a good date, according to Toby, is thrifting at antique stores.[3]
May helps Jazz recover from her weeks in captivity at the hands of Amandine, even dissolving into tears from the stress and worry. [11]
May confides into Toby that Jazz is unsure of marriage.[3] Jazz later admits that her hesitation is more about the danger that always seems to surround Toby's friends. They have further conversations about it, and by Toby's wedding Jazz has informally said that she would like to marry May.[12]
“[Jazz] said she'd been in relationships with way bigger problems than one of us being a transitory manifestation of impending doom. Like this one girl who liked her computer more than she liked her girlfriend, and another one who smoked.” -May
Egil[]
May has a strained relationship with Egil, current leader of the night-haunts, who has has been cold toward her since she became a Fetch as befitting his absorbed Devin-personality.
Quotes[]
- “I may be a composite of multiple dead people, but I'm not stupid.” -May [13]
- “May doesn’t drive, largely because no one is willing to get into a car with her anymore.” -Toby[13]
Trivia[]
- "Mayday" is a communications term for "we are in grave danger."
- "May Day" is another name for Beltane.
- "May" aligns with the Torquill month-based naming theme and also derives from her night-haunt name Mai.
- May appears on Toby's doorstep in the morning.[2] Folklorists John and Michael Banim report that if a Fetch appears in the morning rather than the evening, it is a sign of a long life in store.[14] This is ironic, considering the amount of fatal attacks Toby has survived throughout the series, but Toby's survival is proof of that sign.
Word of God[]
- McGuire often sidelines May because she is "hugely inconvenient from a plot perspective." The fact that she can't be hurt, or even long-term elf-shot, removes the tension in an action scene. The fact that she is a a walking Wikipedia of fae history makes it too easy for the team to solve mysteries. And "for a character perspective, May is generally down to cause chaos, and Jazz wants her to stay the fuck home and not try to live up to her absolute walnut of a sister. And May would rather keep Jazz happy than force the issue."[15]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 One Salt Sea
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 An Artificial Night
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 A Killing Frost Ch. 4
- ↑ The Unkindest Tide
- ↑ The Winter Long
- ↑ A Red-Rose Chain
- ↑ Late Eclipses
- ↑ Night and Silence
- ↑ A Killing Frost Ch. 6
- ↑ The Winter Long Ch 2
- ↑ Night and Silence Ch. 1
- ↑ And With Reveling
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 Chimes at Midnight
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetch_(folklore)
- ↑ https://seananmcguire.tumblr.com/post/662097776180609024/you-do-not-need-to-be-embarrassed-and-you-do-not