The Winter Long Read online

  Praise for the October Daye Novels

  “Rosemary and Rue will surely appeal to readers who enjoy my books, or those of Patricia Briggs.”

  —Charlaine Harris, #1 New York Times bestselling author

  “Fast-paced, without ever being frantic, with excellent characterization. . . . McGuire is a dab hand at dialogue, and the bantering between Toby and everyone—especially Tybalt—is one of the highlights of the book.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “The plot is strong, the characterization is terrific, the tragedies hurt . . . and McGuire’s usual beautiful writing and dark humor are present and accounted for. This has become one of my favorite urban fantasy series, and I can’t wait to find out what happens next.”

  —FantasyLiterature.com

  “An urban fantasy detective series featuring a resourceful female detective . . . [October Daye] should appeal to fans of Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files as well as the novels of Charlaine Harris, Patricia Briggs, and similar authors.”

  —Library Journal

  “It’s fun watching [Toby] stick doggedly to the case as the killer picks off more victims and the tension mounts.”

  —LOCUS

  “With Ashes of Honor, McGuire has crafted a deeply personal and intense story that will keep you on the edge, hoping to be pushed over. In my opinion, it is, hands down, the best Toby to date.”

  —The Ranting Dragon

  “These books are like watching half a season of your favorite television series all at once. . . . More than anything else, it’s the fun of it all that’s kept me returning to McGuire’s books, and to this series, long after I’ve stopped reading other mainstream titles.”

  —SF Signal

  “I love that Toby is a strong, independent—yet still vulnerable—heroine. I love that this is a world where people die, where consequences matter. I love the complex world-building and mythology. I love the almost film noir tone of the series. I love that each book leaves me wanting more. If you dig urban fantasy, this is one of the best out there.”

  —CC2K

  DAW Books presents the finest in urban fantasy from Seanan McGuire:

  InCryptid Novels:

  DISCOUNT ARMAGEDDON

  MIDNIGHT BLUE-LIGHT SPECIAL

  HALF-OFF RAGNAROK

  POCKET APOCALYPSE*

  SPARROW HILL ROAD

  October Daye Novels:

  ROSEMARY AND RUE

  A LOCAL HABITATION

  AN ARTIFICIAL NIGHT

  LATE ECLIPSES

  ONE SALT SEA

  ASHES OF HONOR

  CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT

  THE WINTER LONG

  *Coming soon from DAW Books

  Copyright © 2014 by Seanan McGuire.

  All Rights Reserved.

  Cover art by Chris McGrath.

  Cover design by G-Force Design.

  Interior dingbat created by Tara O’Shea.

  DAW Book Collectors No. 1663.

  DAW Books are distributed by Penguin Group (USA).

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

  Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  Nearly all the designs and trade names in this book are registered trademarks. All that are still in commercial use are protected by United States and international trademark law.

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-60175-4

  DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED U.S. PAT. AND TM. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES —MARCA REGISTRADA HECHO EN U.S.A.

  Version_1

  CONTENTS

  Praise for Seanan McGuire

  Books by Seanan McGuire

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  October Daye Pronunciation Guide

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  This book is dedicated, with love and gratitude, to Tanya Huff.

  Thank you for making so many things possible.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:

  Welcome to The Winter Long.

  This book was one of the first I fully plotted, back when this series was a glimmer in my eye and a fantasy for the future. Everything I have done with October’s world to this point has been for the sake of getting here, to the book that you now hold in your hands. I am incredibly excited to be at this point, to have gotten this far into Toby’s story—and make no mistake, there’s still so very far left to go.

  Thank you for reading. Thank you for trusting me to tell you this story, which has been with me for so long. Thanks to the Machete Squad, who are a constant in my life, and who keep me together when things get hard. Thanks to Amanda and Michael, and to Aislinn (welcome to the world, my skeleton girl; we are going to have a lot of fun). Thanks to the Disney Magic Bitches, who have endured another unnumbered series of Disney excursions, including possibly the best birthday party I have ever had, and to my darlings, Vixy, Amy, Brooke, and Shawn, who knew I was a scorpion when they picked me up.

  My editor, Sheila Gilbert, is the best I could have wished for, and my agent, Diana Fox, is still my personal superhero. Thanks also to Josh Starr at DAW, who is the most frequent target of my random mid-week phone calls, and to my cover artist, Chris McGrath, for bringing Toby so beautifully to life. And thanks to the crew here on the ground: Christopher Mangum, Tara O’Shea, and Kate Secor.

  My soundtrack while writing The Winter Long consisted mostly of Night Visions, by Imagine Dragons, Queen of Spindles, by Talis Kimberley, Baptized, by Daughtry, endless live concert recordings of the Counting Crows, and random episodes of Welcome to Night Vale. Any errors in this book are entirely my own. The errors that aren’t here are the ones that all these people helped me fix.

  Now grab your coat. It’s going to get a little chilly in here.

  OCTOBER DAYE PRONUNCIATION GUIDE

  THROUGH THE WINTER LONG

  All pronunciations are given strictly phonetically. This only covers races explicitly named in the first eight books, omitting Undersea races not appearing or mentioned in book eight.

  Afanc: ah-fank. Plural is Afanc.

  Annwn: ah-noon. No plural exists.

  Bannick: ban-nick. Plural is Bannicks.

  Barghest: bar-guy-st. Plural is Barghests.

  Blodynbryd: blow-din-brid. Plural is Blodynbryds.

  Cait Sidhe: kay-th shee. Plural is Cait Sidhe.

  Candela: can-dee-la. Plural is Candela.

  Cetace: sea-tay-see. Plural is Cetacea.

  Coblynau: cob-lee-now. Plural is Coblynau.

  Cu Sidhe: coo shee. Plural is Cu Sidhe.

  Daoine Sidhe: doon-ya shee. Plural is Daoine Sidhe, diminutive is Daoine.

  Djinn: jin. Plural is Djinn.

  Dóchas Sidhe: doe-sh-as shee. Plural is Dóchas Sidhe.

  Ellyllon: el-lee-lawn. Plural is Ellyllons.

  Gean-Cannah: gee-ann can-na. Plural is Gean-Cannah.

 
Glastig: glass-tig. Plural is Glastigs.

  Gwragen: guh-war-a-gen. Plural is Gwragen.

  Hamadryad: ha-ma-dry-add. Plural is Hamadryads.

  Hippocampus: hip-po-cam-pus. Plural is Hippocampi.

  Kelpie: kel-pee. Plural is Kelpies.

  Kitsune: kit-soo-nay. Plural is Kitsune.

  Lamia: lay-me-a. Plural is Lamia.

  The Luidaeg: the lou-sha-k. No plural exists.

  Manticore: man-tee-core. Plural is Manticores.

  Merrow: meh-row. Plural is Merrow.

  Naiad: nigh-add. Plural is Naiads.

  Nixie: nix-ee. Plural is Nixen.

  Peri: pear-ee. Plural is Peri.

  Piskie: piss-key. Plural is Piskies.

  Puca: puh-ca. Plural is Pucas.

  Roane: row-n. Plural is Roane.

  Satyr: say-tur. Plural is Satyrs.

  Selkie: sell-key. Plural is Selkies.

  Shyi Shuai: shh-yee shh-why. Plural is Shyi Shuai.

  Silene: sigh-lean. Plural is Silene.

  Tuatha de Dannan: tootha day danan. Plural is Tuatha de Dannan, diminutive is Tuatha.

  Tylwyth Teg: till-with teeg. Plural is Tylwyth Teg, diminutive is Tylwyth.

  Urisk: you-risk. Plural is Urisk.

  ONE

  December 20th, 2012

  For you there’s rosemary and rue; these keep

  Seeming and savor all the winter long.

  Grace and remembrance be to you both.

  —William Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale.

  THE WOODS WERE DARK, filled with strange shadows. They twisted and swirled independent of any light source, making the space beneath the towering sequoias look treacherous and wild. Not much in the way of illumination could trickle all the way down through the tightly-laced branches to ground level; the few streaks of moonlight that had managed to reach us were washed out and thin, managing to seem almost darker than having no light at all. Everything was permeated by the smell of redwood sap and the sea.

  We had arrived as a group, May, Jazz, and Quentin packed into the backseat like sardines, me behind the wheel, and Tybalt sitting rigidly next to me. He didn’t really like cars under the best of circumstances. He liked them even less when there were multiple other passengers, since that meant he couldn’t respond to an accident by yanking everyone safely onto the Shadow Roads. Call it a quirk brought on by being several hundred years older than the internal combustion engine.

  I had parked the car in the mostly deserted Muir Woods lot, where May, Jazz, and Quentin had promptly gone on ahead, choosing retreat over dealing with my mood. This left Tybalt with the unenviable duty of trying to coax me into a party I had no interest in attending. I don’t like parties. Someone always tries to assassinate someone I actually like, and there are never enough of those little stuffed mushroom caps.

  Right: this had gone on long enough. I stopped at the edge of the first trail leading up the slope, digging my heels into the dirt and refusing to be budged. “Nope,” I said. “I said I’d come; I came. These are the woods. I have entered Muir Woods. Now I’m going home. You have fun, I’ll see you when you get back.”

  “Once again you underestimate my ability to move you, while simultaneously overestimating your ability not to be moved.” Tybalt caught my wrist, tugging me forward.

  I dug my heels in deeper. “You’re the one who’s overestimating things here,” I said. “I don’t want to do this. I told you I didn’t want to do this. I told everyone I didn’t want to do this. Can we just go do something else? See a movie? Go out for a nice dinner? We could go back to the house and watch some BBC Shakespeare. I won’t even smack you for criticizing their pronunciation . . .”

  Tybalt released my wrist and stepped back, looking at me with exasperated fondness. “October,” he said. “Do you consider me so easily bribed as all that?”

  “I was hoping?”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “Everyone else will be here,” I said, trying another angle. “We’ll have the house to ourselves.”

  “Ah. That does put a different spin on things, and were the matter mine to decide, it might even sway my response in your favor.” My Cait Sidhe boyfriend shook his head, the moonlight glinting off his tabby-patterned brown hair. This late at night and this far from any human residences, neither of us was bothering with a human disguise. Not that he was in any way unattractive when he was pretending to be mortal—far from it—but I preferred his real face, complete with the malachite-banded green eyes that were currently narrowed in amusement over my predicament. “Alas, the matter is out of my hands. I will deliver you to the Queen, or we will both face her wrath.”

  I crossed my arms and scowled at him. “Arden isn’t all that wrath-y. She used to be a bookstore clerk.”

  “She is, as you say, ‘wrath-y’ enough. She is a queen. That is sufficient to lend teeth to whatever wrath she chooses to express.” Tybalt leaned forward and took hold of my wrist again, effortlessly unfolding my arms as he resumed trying to tug me into Muir Woods. “Come. The sooner we arrive, the sooner we can depart. Besides, you dressed for the occasion. Shouldn’t you take the time to at least pretend to enjoy it?”

  I scowled, but I couldn’t pretend he wasn’t right about the last part. We were dressed for the occasion, thanks to my having raided my old bedroom in my mother’s tower, and his possession of a seemingly endless supply of leather trousers. He was wearing a pair in tawny brown, accented across the legs with strips of darker brown that managed to imply a tabby’s stripes without turning into a costume from the latest revival of Cats. His cream-colored poet’s shirt was unlaced enough to be tempting, but still modest enough not to cross the line into romance novel territory, and his brown leather vest and boots matched the stripes on his trousers. He looked basically amazing. No one could have looked at him without seeing the King of Cats he truly was.

  I don’t clean up quite as well. My dress was one-shouldered and long enough that I had to lift it whenever I was stepping over anything—I wasn’t looking forward to climbing up the side of the hill between us and the Queen’s knowe. The whole thing was made of spider-silk, which would have put it well outside of my price range if it hadn’t been commissioned for me when I was still living with my mother. It gleamed in the moonlight like liquid silver. Stronger colors have a tendency to wash me out, thanks to my complexion: I’m naturally pale, made paler by my primarily nocturnal lifestyle. My hair is the kind of straight that refuses to take a curl, and a shade of no-color brown that’s moved a thousand boxes of Clairol. Veins of pale gold run through it, courtesy of my increasingly strong fae blood.

  Still, I had to admit the dress was a good cut for me, and it fit like it had been stitched yesterday. May had done my makeup, choosing subtle metallic shades to make it look like my fog-colored eyes were actually worth gazing into, and my hair was pinned into an artfully messy updo, woven with strands of black opal that matched my necklace and earrings. No one could say I hadn’t at least attempted to get ready for a formal ball.

  That didn’t mean I had the slightest intention of actually going.

  Tybalt apparently realized he wasn’t going to make me move, because he stopped pulling on my wrist and stepped closer, placing a finger beneath my chin and tilting my head back until our eyes met. “Do you truly intend to waste all the work of preparing for this event? You look astonishing, October. Perhaps I am a proud man, but I did so look forward to seeing others seeing you and realizing that they had overlooked your beauty while allowing their eyes to be clouded by the woman who once ruled in this demesne. Smugness excites me. I was even more excited about the prospect of taking you home after the ball, and showing you exactly how much I appreciate that you have chosen me over all of them.”

  “Flattery will get you a lot of places, kitty-cat, including into my pants, but it’s not going to get me to go to that ball.”r />
  Tybalt nodded, smiling broadly enough to show the point of one sharpened incisor. “Oh, I know. But did you know that there is one place that flattery will always get me?”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Where’s that?”

  “Past your guard.” He dropped my wrist. Before I could object, his arms were locked around my waist, and we were falling into the shadows, where everything was cold and black and there wasn’t any oxygen.

  We fell for what could have been forever. Intellectually, I knew it was only a few seconds. That didn’t help as much as it might have. My body had enough time to notice that I’d stopped breathing and send up an objection, and then we were back on solid ground, and the air around us no longer felt like it was made of pure ice. It was no surprise when I opened my eyes and found myself looking at the door to Arden’s knowe. It was standing open to the night air, and the trees around it were lit with pixies and fireflies. Of the two, the fireflies were more unusual—they’re not native to California.

  “Dirty pool!” I pushed away from Tybalt, who let me go without a fight. I glared at him. At least he had the decency not to laugh at me, although I could tell it was a struggle. “That was dirty pool and it wasn’t fair, and you should be ashamed of yourself!”

  “I am abashed by my own behavior,” he replied, deadpan. “I will spend a lifetime fighting to redeem myself in your eyes.”

  “Damn right you will.” I glared at him as I adjusted the strap on my gown and reached up to check my hair for frozen patches. We’d been in and out of the shadows too quickly for any ice to form. Bully for me. I lowered my hand and sighed, finally giving up on the glare as I asked, “So what you’re saying is that we really have to do this.”

  “That is precisely what I’m saying.” He offered me his arm. “If milady would do me the great honor of allowing me to escort her into the Yule Ball?”

  “I hate you,” I said, slipping my hand into the bend of his elbow.

  “I know.”

  This vital exchange complete, we walked together past the guards at the door—who were smirking, having clearly eavesdropped on us the whole time—and into Arden’s knowe.