The Winter Long Read online

  Evening was Firstborn, and more, Evening was angry. If she realized the Luidaeg wasn’t dead—and I couldn’t discount that possibility—she had to at least suspect that I was the one hiding her sister from her. That meant Tybalt’s sense of duty would keep him in the Court of Cats until the Luidaeg was well enough to be moved; he wouldn’t risk his people needlessly by leaving them there with her and not staying to come to their defense if Evening somehow got in. He also wasn’t going to let me walk away and deal with things on my own, no matter how much I wanted to.

  We were going to have to work this out, somehow. Evening had to be stopped, even if I still had no idea how to go about accomplishing that.

  My phone rang again. I stood, moving to retrieve it once again from my jacket pocket, and blinked. The display listed the caller as “East of the Sun, West of the Moon,” which was definitely not within the local service area. Sure that this was some sort of a trick—and not at all sure what I was supposed to do about it—I raised the phone to my ear.

  “Hello?” I said.

  “Please, I implore you, don’t hang up.”

  Only two people had that voice, and there was no reason for Sylvester to be calling me from an unfamiliar number. “Hello, Simon,” I said wearily. “How did you get this number?”

  “Is that really what you want to know right now?”

  “Given that you tried to turn me into a tree, and all the other antisocial crap you’ve pulled, yeah, it is. Did you hurt someone to get my number?” The door opened and Tybalt stepped back into the room just in time to hear my last comment. His eyes widened. I held up my hand, signaling for him to stay quiet. Just for the moment; just for now. “Answer me, Simon.”

  Simon sighed. “The Hobs at Shadowed Hills have your number written on a piece of paper posted next to the telephone. I copied it down. It’s all very primitive there. I thought my brother would have made more strides toward modernity. He always thought of himself as a progressive, when we were younger.”

  “You didn’t hurt anyone.”

  “No, I did not,” said Simon. “Pray greet your feline swain for me, as he has clearly entered the room. You may stop ostentatiously using my given name and repeating everything I say. I promise, I am not calling to distress you.”

  “And yet you’re managing it,” I said. “What do you want, Simon?”

  “I want to see you.”

  I laughed before I realized I was going to. “Oh, not just no, but hell no. That’s not going to happen.”

  “But it must. Please. There are things we must discuss. I have . . . a small time, when I am not being watched. I don’t know when this time will come again.” Simon paused before saying, “I would have come to you, but I couldn’t find you. I don’t know where you have hidden yourself, and I don’t want to. There’s too much chance I could be compelled to tell.”

  He sounded sincere. I blinked. Simon really didn’t want to know where I was, because he might have to tell Evening. He hadn’t given me away when I’d called Shadowed Hills. He’d brought us the winter roses.

  Maybe he was really trying to be on my side.

  “Where are you?” I asked.

  “Your home. I can linger for an hour. Please, come.” The line went dead.

  I lowered the phone and looked at Tybalt. “Simon Torquill is at my house. He wants to talk to me.”

  “And you have agreed to let him.” Tybalt shook his head. “I suppose I should be upset, but we both knew it was only a matter of time before you resumed pursuing impossible quests and slaying dragons. Shall I wake your squire?”

  “No,” I said, walking over to offer him my hand. “Simon also said he couldn’t find us here. If leaving Quentin behind keeps him safe, I can deal with him being pissed at me.” I felt a small pang of guilt at the idea of leaving without saying good-bye to Quentin, but it was just that: small. Waking Quentin up would be selfish, and it would slow us down. We needed to get to Simon as quickly as possible. Part of me wanted to tell Tybalt that I didn’t want to go; that if Simon couldn’t find us in the Court of Cats, neither could Evening, and we would be safe here. The rest of me knew that was a lie.

  “Take a deep breath,” said Tybalt, and took my hands, and pulled me with him into the shadows.

  Wherever we’d been in the Court of Cats, it must have been near the house, because we had only been running for a few minutes when we stepped back into the warmth of my kitchen. The lights were out, and the sky outside the windows was the clear, brittle blue of the early morning. I pulled away from Tybalt, reaching up to wipe the ice away from my face. The faint smell of oranges and smoke drifted in from the hall.

  “October?”

  I held up a hand, signaling for Tybalt to stay quiet as I sniffed the air. Simon’s magic was the only thing I could detect. It had been long enough since dawn that even the ashy smell of my wards burning away had had plenty of time to clear.

  “He’s here,” I said, lowering my hand and starting for the kitchen door. “I guess we’re really doing this.”

  “I suppose we are,” said Tybalt. He looked unhappy as he paced along beside me. I couldn’t really blame him.

  “If it looks like he’s going to turn me into a fish again, you can gut him, okay?” I flashed a humorless smile. “As long as no one ever finds the body, there’s no reason for anybody to know that we broke Oberon’s Law.”

  “I am not sure whether I find this new viciousness enticing or terrifying,” muttered Tybalt.

  “Oh, trust me, sweetie: where Simon is concerned, this is nothing new.” I pushed open the door, sniffing again as I stepped into the hall. The smell of Simon’s magic was coming from the living room. I walked to the doorway and stopped, blinking at the sight of Simon Torquill sitting on my couch with Spike curled in his lap. He was running his hand down my rose goblin’s thorny back, stroking with the grain rather than against it, and looked as if he’d been there for quite some time.

  I must have made some small noise when I arrived in the doorway, because Simon looked up, eyes tired, and said, “I fed your feline companions, as well as this thorny fellow here. They were most insistent, and I thought you might appreciate it.”

  “I appreciate your concern,” I said. I couldn’t quite keep the bitterness out of my voice. “Why didn’t you tell me Evening was alive?”

  “I couldn’t, could I? The geas under which I operate left me very little leeway for the telling of wild tales—and why should you have believed me? I, who should have been your father, and was your enemy instead.” Simon chuckled. For some reason, it didn’t sound mocking: it was more self-loathing, the laughter of a man who had looked upon his life and found very little to be proud of. “I did my best. I told you what I could, and prayed you would be smart enough to know what I’d been forbidden to say. It worked, to a point. You went to Goldengreen.”

  I blinked. “You knew that?”

  “I saw you fall.” There was no laughter this time. Just deep, crystalline sorrow. “You appeared in midair and dropped like stones, like you’d been slapped aside by the hand of Oberon himself. There was nothing I could have done.”

  “That explains your regret, coward,” snapped Tybalt. “How could you have gone to your lady wife and reported that you’d watched another daughter die?”

  “August isn’t dead,” snapped Simon. Tybalt and I both went still, watching him like we might watch a venomous snake. Simon blinked at us, looking surprised by his own outburst. Then he looked away. “My . . . my apologies. It’s a sensitive subject.”

  “So sensitive you never mentioned it, even as you were turning your stepchild into a fish,” said Tybalt.

  “Much as I’m sure we all need the group therapy session, this isn’t the time,” I said. “Simon, what are you doing here? You’re not my friend. You’re not even my ally. Why are you in my house?”

  “I knew the fall wouldn’t k
ill you. I once saw your mother’s throat cut so deeply that you could look at the bones of her spine. They were delicate, like coral, and washed with red.” Simon kept stroking Spike. “An hour later she was laughing and asking when I would buy her a new gown to replace the one she’d ruined. You’re not her equal—none of us are the equal to our First—but I thought you might have enough of her in you to let you make a miraculous return. I was right. As for your cat . . .” He shrugged. “I suppose some old wives’ tales must be true, or else the old wives would stop telling them.”

  “I’m touched to hear that you had that much faith in me. Of course, a call to the Coast Guard would have been a little more useful. You called me, remember? Why did you call me now?” I crossed my arms. “What do you want, Simon?”

  “You received my warning: you went to Goldengreen, even if you didn’t fully understand the reason I was telling you to look there for your answers. You know now that Ev—” He choked on the first syllable of Evening’s name, coughing for a moment before he spat, “You know she is still alive. That’s more than you had before. You have seen her effect on my brother. I can help you.”

  “You can’t even say her name. How are you supposed to help me?” I dropped my hands back to my sides. “You know what? Forget it. I came when you called, but I’m not ready to have this conversation. I’m going upstairs to change my clothes. Tybalt is going to watch you, and you’re going to figure out how to make me believe a damn thing you say. Then you’re going to leave. And we will be resetting the wards after this, so don’t even ask whether I have a guest room.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” said Simon. He remained where he was on the couch, continuing to stroke Spike with one hand. He flashed Tybalt a cool smile. “Will you be my keeper?”

  “If you move, I’ll gut you,” said Tybalt.

  “Whee,” I muttered. “Play nice and don’t kill each other. I’ll be back.” I turned and left the room before I could think better of leaving them alone, practically running up the stairs to my bedroom. Cagney and Lacey were curled up on the bed. They ignored my entrance, and continued to ignore me as I stripped out of my bloody and borrowed things, only to replace them with near-duplicates from my dresser. Only near: these were clean, save for a small bloodstain on the left cup of my replacement bra. Blood and cotton were best friends when they actually got the opportunity to meet, and getting the one out of the other was virtually impossible.

  “These are not good saving-the-world clothes,” I told the cats, as I retied my shoes—now worn over a thick pair of hiking socks. “These are cleaning-the-garage clothes. Maybe flea-market-in-Marin clothes. That’s because I’m not a saving-the-world girl. They got the wrong person for the job.”

  The cats didn’t reply. It didn’t matter that I was dating their King: they were still cats, and they had better things to do with their time than engage in a conversation with their pet changeling.

  I made sure to clomp as I descended the stairs, trying to give Tybalt enough time to let go of Simon’s throat. When I stepped back into the living room, however, there was no violence happening. Tybalt was leaning against the wall, looking at Simon with a combination of confusion and mistrust, while Simon remained seated on the couch, Spike in his lap and a resigned expression on his face.

  “You don’t trust me,” he said.

  I blinked. “Okay, that’s getting straight to the heart of the matter. You’re right, Simon: I don’t trust you. You turned me into a fish. You broke Rayseline. You’ve done nothing to make me trust you, and a hell of a lot to make me hate you. Your point?”

  “I did not . . .” He faltered before trying again: “It was not my intention to alienate you. I would have had nothing to do with you until I was free of my . . . commitments . . . so that I might become a part of your life that was welcomed. Wanted, even.”

  “But Evening had other ideas,” I said slowly. “She told you to get involved with me, didn’t she?”

  He tried to speak, only to pause as no sound passed his lips. Looking frustrated, he took a deep breath and tried again: “I have chosen very few of my actions since I was foolish enough to give myself to . . . to the one who holds me. It’s harder than I can express. I have struggled so long with the need to keep you safe and the need to obey my orders.”

  “And now here we are,” I said. “What can you do for me, Simon? You’re still bound, you’re still hers, for all I know, you’re leading her here—so what can you do for me?”

  He stopped stroking Spike, but left his hand where it was, resting on the rose goblin’s thorny back. “I can bleed,” he said quietly. “I can let you see.”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling my eyes go wide and round with surprise. “Yeah. I guess that is something you can do.”

  And here I’d been so pleased to be wearing something that wasn’t covered in blood.

  NINETEEN

  MOST MAGIC FALLS into one of three schools. Flower magic—illusions and wards—is inherited primarily through Titania. Water magic—transformation and healing—comes from Maeve. Blood magic, the magic of memory and theft, comes from Oberon. There’s crossover, but as a rule, no race will be strong in a school that isn’t somehow connected to their First. As a descendant of Titania and Oberon, Simon had access to flower and blood magic. As a descendant of Oberon, and Oberon alone, all I had was blood . . . but I was very, very good at using it.

  “Are you sure?” I hated to ask. I wanted to grab him and bleed him dry, drinking any scrap of information he might have—but the line between me and the monsters was thin enough as it was. If I started taking instead of waiting for things to be freely given, I would cross that line. I needed his consent to be absolute. “Once this starts, I don’t know if I’ll be able to pull back. I’ve never drunk directly from a living person for the purpose of riding their blood. It could go anywhere.”

  Simon nodded. “Yes. I understand what you can do, perhaps better than you do at this stage in your development. I give my full permission, and I will not stop you from learning the things you need to know. It’s not like I could stop you anyway, once we’ve started. Words can lie. People can lie. Blood never can.”

  That was about as good as it could possibly get. I cast a nervous glance toward Tybalt as I walked across the living room and sat down on the couch next to Simon. Spike raised its head, making an inquiring chirping noise. I stroked its thorny ears. “It’s probably going to hurt.”

  To my surprise, Simon smiled. “No, it won’t. There’s nothing in my blood for you to change; I am Daoine Sidhe to the core. My blood won’t fight you.”

  That was new information. “Good to know,” I said faintly, and drew my knife. “Give me your hand.”

  “No need.” He pressed his palm flat against Spike’s back, not hard enough to hurt the rose goblin, but hard enough to break Simon’s skin in half a dozen places. The smell of blood flooded the room, and saliva flooded my mouth in a Pavlovian response that I really didn’t want to think about. The sight of blood still freaked me out, but the smell of it promised answers: something I almost always needed.

  Simon held his palm out toward me. The blood from the scratches was leaking out onto his skin, turning it an enticing red. I glanced to Tybalt. He nodded once, not moving from his position by the wall. Whatever came next, he would be here for it.

  That helped a little. I reached out and took Simon’s bleeding hand in both of mine, trying to ignore the way my stomach lurched.

  “This may take me a moment,” I cautioned.

  “Take all the time you need,” he said.

  There was nothing I could say at this point to change what was about to happen, and so I brought my lips to his palm, and closed my eyes, and drank.

  —believe she’s really willing—

  —looks so much like her mother—

  —doesn’t look like her mother at all—

  Simon’s thoughts sla
mmed into me with the force of a hammer hitting a wall. I gasped, not opening my eyes, and tried to force my way through that top layer of active thought. I hadn’t been expecting that, although I suppose I should have been; blood holds thoughts and memories, and Simon’s blood was still a part of him, still connected to the rest of his body through the open wounds and the hot skin beneath it. Of course it was carrying more than I was used to.

  Down, down, down, I thought, willing my magic to take me there. Like Alice and the rabbit hole, come on, down . . .

  The thoughts faded into blurry unintelligibility, replaced by the veil of red that I was more accustomed to when I was working blood magic. I took a breath, only dimly aware of my body—of the fact that I had lungs I could breathe with—and pushed harder, until I broke through the blood, into—

  She is so beautiful. She owns this room: all others might as well not be here, because no eyes are on them, not when Amandine walks in beauty. My brother loves her. He thinks I don’t know, because he thinks I am foolish, but I am not foolish; I have seen the way he looks at her, the brave hero assessing the next tower he intends to climb. He won’t have her. She deserves much more than Sylvester Torquill, and so much more than his younger brother, whose eyes follow her like all the rest. I have no chance with her. I have no choice but to look. She is so beautiful.

  Seeing Amandine through his eyes was almost shocking enough to throw me out of the memory. She was wearing a long purple gown in a style that had been outdated for centuries but probably hadn’t been outdated yet, not in that moment, and she was . . . there are people who say I look like her. Most of the time I’ll just shrug and let them think that if they want to; it’s not worth fighting over. But seeing her reflected in Simon’s memory was enough to hammer home the fact that no, I don’t look like her. No one with a drop of human blood could ever look like her, and that’s a good thing, because her kind of beauty stopped hearts.