The Winter Long (20 page)

“What's that?” asked Raj.

“We are
so
screwed.”

A
STUNNED SILENCE
fell over the room. It lasted almost a full minute before Quentin said, “She's my
First?
How can you . . . I mean, wouldn't we know?”

“The Firstborn have proven remarkably skilled at disappearing from the lives of their children,” said Tybalt, in a careful tone. “Most of us are not even certain whether those who founded our lines are alive or dead. Why should the Daoine Sidhe be any different?”

“The Luidaeg said the Firstborn all stopped using their proper names with their descendant races, going to honorifics instead,” I said. “She never used Evening's name when we were talking about her. It was always ‘the Winterrose.' ‘Eira' means ‘snow,' and ‘Rosynhwyr' means ‘the frozen rose.'” I was stretching the translation a bit there, but I didn't think Mags would mind.

“That's not proof,” said Quentin. He was starting to look distressed. I guess finding out that your First is the kind of person who just might be your worst nightmare come to life isn't exactly easy.

“No, but it fits,” I said. “It makes a lot of other things fit, too. Like the fact that
everyone else
who's died since I came back from the pond has shown up among the night-haunts, but Evening was never there.”

“The people who died at ALH never joined the night-haunts,” said Quentin stubbornly.

“Because their souls were digitized and uploaded to a locked server,” I countered. “Evening should have been there. She wasn't. So why not? It can't be because she didn't want to see us. Devin and Dare joined the night-haunts, and they didn't want to see us either. Joining the night-haunts isn't a
choice
, unless you're not as dead as you want everyone to think you are.”

“How was Evening killed?” asked Tybalt.

“They used iron,” I said. “That's another thing: you need iron
and
silver if you want to kill one of the First.” I hadn't known that when Evening “died,” but I'd learned it all too well from Blind Michael. If I hadn't used both iron and silver when I killed him, he would have just gotten back up and kept coming after the people that I loved, no matter how badly I'd hurt him.

Evening had been shot with iron bullets. Her throat had been slit with an iron knife by Devin, the man who'd taught me how to survive in the tangled border country occupied by the local changeling population. I'd tasted the damage, ridden it far enough to be afraid I was about to share her death—but I hadn't
seen
her die, had I? Her heart had still been beating when I'd pulled myself out of the blood magic that had been letting me follow what I'd believed to be her final moments. Even her injunction to “find the ones who did this” had never mentioned finding her killers.

She had known there weren't going to be any.

“We're so screwed,” I said again, softer this time. Tybalt looked at me with concern. I shook my head. “Evening was there when I was knighted. She knows too much about me and the way I react to things. We can't surprise her.”

“Yes, we can,” said Raj. “She won't have expected you to come here. No one expects anyone who isn't Cait Sidhe to come here, because our doors are generally sealed against all others. I don't care whether she's the Firstborn of the Daoine Sidhe or the Queen of France; she's not going to be able to follow us. You're safe as long as you stay here.”

“The Cait Sidhe had three Firstborn where most races had only one,” agreed Tybalt. “Our First worked together with Oberon himself to make this place a sanctuary for our kind. This Eira, no matter how powerful she may be, will not have the power to overcome a spell woven by three of her equals and one of her superiors.”

“That would be swell if we were staying here, but we're not,” I said. Tybalt frowned at me. So did Raj. Quentin was looking away, watching the fire, expression blank. I shook my head. “Look: you can't pull everyone I give a damn about into the Court of Cats while we wait to see what, if anything, Evening is planning. May and Jazz are still at Arden's Court. The Luidaeg is still asleep. Sylvester doesn't know why his brother is . . . oh, root and branch.” I stopped mid-sentence, a wave of bitter understanding washing over me.

“October? What's wrong?” demanded Tybalt.

“Simon admitted to me—
admitted
—that he was responsible for kidnapping Luna and Rayseline, but he said he did it because he was hired to by the person who'd geased him. She offered him something he said he ‘couldn't resist,' and so he agreed. But whoever hired him also wanted me dead.” I raked my hair away from my face with one hand, feeling strangely numb. “She wanted me killed. That was part of the deal. And Sylvester doesn't know. He knows Simon did it, but he has no idea that it was Evening who hired—we have to get to Shadowed Hills. We have to
warn
him.”

“We don't even know that Evening is going there,” said Tybalt. “And even if you're sure, can't we call? Sylvester will listen to you. He's learned the value of your words, even when what you say is a seeming impossibility.”

“Yes—yes!” I seized on the suggestion, digging my phone out again and dialing the number for Shadowed Hills. It was ringing when I raised it to my ear. And it kept ringing, and ringing, until dread gathered in the pit of my stomach, whispering to me of disasters and double-crosses. We didn't know where Simon was. He could have doubled back, he could have—

The ringing stopped. “Hello?”

The voice was Sylvester's, and wasn't Sylvester's, all at the same time. The dread solidified into a hard ball of anger. “Simon. Why are you answering this phone?”

“Why hello, October. It's lovely to hear from you. I was hoping you would call. You don't call nearly as often as I would like. You should really move back home.”

I hesitated. I'd identified him by name. If it had been Sylvester on the phone, he would have corrected me, and probably been horribly offended. So why was he talking to me like I didn't know who he was? “What the fuck, Simon?”

“Yes, I'd really like it if you could bring Quentin to lunch next week. That seems like a fair compromise.”

“Simon . . .” The anger was thawing back into fear. It wasn't an improvement. “Are you in trouble? Is
Sylvester
in trouble?”

“Yes, absolutely.” His tone didn't waver, remaining absolutely genial. It was the sort of tone someone would use if the threat was in the same room.

“Okay. Got it. We'll be right there.” I hung up the phone, looking back to the others. “Simon's answering the phone at Shadowed Hills, and for whatever reason, he can't speak freely. It could be a trap. I have to go anyway. We need to get to Sylvester.”

“Next time you have need to choose a liege, I beg you, select one closer to your place of residence,” said Tybalt. He rubbed his face with one hand. Then he nodded. “All right. We stay together. We'll travel through the Court for as long as we can, to shorten the time spent in shadow.”

“I don't think we can walk from San Francisco to Pleasant Hill,” I objected.

“You won't need to,” Tybalt said. “If the Summerlands are smaller than the world they encircle, the Court of Cats is smaller still. Those who walk here may as well be wearing seven league boots, for all the distance we will cover.”

“How far can we get?” I asked bluntly. “Name a place, please.”

Tybalt sighed. “There is very little poetry in precision.”

“Yeah, but there's a lot of accurate risk assessment. How far?”

“To the coast. My Court ends at the water—but from there, we should be able to use the Shadow Roads with less strain. Even if it's only a few miles, those miles are ones where we will not be running through the darkness, unprotected.”

I paused, really looking at him for the first time since I'd hung up. “This is about protection. You don't want to leave the Court until we have to.”

“I've lost you once today,” he said quietly. “Please forgive me, but I'm in no hurry to repeat the experience.”

“No forgiveness needed,” I said. “Lead the way.”

So far as I know, there's never been a real map of the Court of Cats: it's an essentially impossible place, made up of pieces of so many other places that you'd need a genius cartographer to devote his life to mapping the Court as it is
now
, and you still wouldn't have a map of the Court as it will be tomorrow. Tybalt and Raj pulled slightly ahead, scouting as they made sure that we were walking into stable hallways, places that were firmly connected to where we needed to go. Tybalt walked with the tight-shouldered prowl that I recognized from all the times I'd upset or annoyed him over the years. He was worried. I couldn't blame him.

Quentin lagged, bringing up the rear of our little procession. I caught Tybalt's eye before jerking my chin very slightly back toward my squire. Tybalt nodded understanding, and I slowed my steps enough to let Quentin catch up to me.

We walked side by side like that for several minutes, falling into the easy rhythm of one another's steps, before Quentin abruptly said, “She brought me here.”

“What?” I glanced at him, sidelong, as I kept walking.

“The Countess Winterrose. She's the reason I'm in San Francisco.”

I frowned. “But you were fostered at Shadowed Hills. Evening's never been connected directly to Shadowed Hills. She and Sylvester have known each other for centuries, and he thought of her as a friend, but she was an ally at best, and a political opponent at worst.”

“I know. Sir Etienne told me about her when I showed up on Duke Torquill's doorstep—not literally, the fosterage process takes longer than that—but she was the one who started the process. My father had decided I needed to be fostered in order to make me a better king,” he stumbled slightly over the word, which had only recently entered our shared vocabulary, “someday, and in order to protect me and Penthea. I was declared his heir before they sent me away. That way there was no point in somebody threatening or subverting her if they couldn't find me.”

I whistled. “Okay, I know your parents are pretty cool and everything, but that? That is cold.”

Quentin shrugged. “That's kingship. I'm not in any hurry to start taking up my duties as the Crown Prince . . . although I wouldn't wish those duties on my sister, either.”

“Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. I get that,” I said. “What did Evening
do
?”

“She contacted my father,” Quentin said, eyes fixed on the hall ahead of us. His accent grew stronger, like he was remembering a time when everyone around him sounded like home, and not like the California coast. “She came to our court. I'd never seen her before, and then one day there she was, during private audiences, standing in front of the dais.”

“Are you sure it was Evening?” I hated to question my squire's memory, but under the circumstances, I would have questioned my own.

Quentin seemed to understand that, because he didn't look annoyed. He just nodded, and said, “I'm sure. She was like something out of a story, you know? I was a fairy prince being raised in a castle hidden on an island outside of Toronto, and she still looked like something out of a story to me. I kept expecting wildflowers to grow in her footsteps. But not pretty ones, not daisies or poppies or anything like that. Poisonous ones. Hemlock and blooming wolfsbane and other things that can hurt you.”

“That sounds like Evening,” I agreed. “What happened?”

“She told my father that rumors of my impending fosterage had reached her, and that while she wouldn't reveal her sources, she had come to plead the case for her home kingdom of the Mists. She told him Goldengreen wasn't really an appropriate place to foster a child, but that the Duchy of Shadowed Hills was an excellent place to learn humility and service.” Quentin shook his head, frowning. “He should have told her ‘no.' He should have said that if she knew I was going to be fostered, she was a danger to the line of succession, and refused to let me go anywhere near her. I was only a kid, and I knew that.”

“That clearly didn't happen, since you're here,” I said.

“That's my point. My father is a good king and a good man and he loves me. He sent me away
because
he loves me. So why would he send me somewhere that had already heard rumors about the Crown Prince being sent into blind fosterage?” Quentin turned to look at me, still walking. “As soon as she said ‘send him to us,' he should have replied ‘get out of my court,' and instead he asked his Seneschal to contact the Duke of Shadowed Hills and start arranging my fosterage. I was in Pleasant Hill, presenting myself at the old oak tree, less than a month later.”

I frowned. “Evening wanted you here.”

“Yes.”