The Winter Long (25 page)

“My mother loves me,” said Raysel thoughtfully. “She always will, I guess, if she was willing to send you here after I almost killed her. But I think if I were a Blodynbryd, we'd always be a little bit connected. I don't know if I could take that. And I don't know if the parts of me that are broken and the parts of her that are broken would be able to coexist.”

“That's definitely a risk,” I agreed.

“My father doesn't know what to do with me, but he always tried to let me find my own way. There are more Daoine Sidhe in our world. It might be easier to learn how to be whole.”

“That's true.” I felt like all I was doing was agreeing with her, offering meaningless sounds that couldn't possibly simplify such an impossible decision. It was all I had.

Raysel bit her lip, worrying it between her teeth for a moment before she asked, “If you were in my position . . . what do you think my parents would want me to be? The royal, or the rose?”

“I'd say your parents both have their flaws, and you should be choosing for you, not for them. You'll have an easier time of it if you're Daoine Sidhe. There will be more people who can help you heal, and who'll understand the way your magic works.”

“I'll have magic?” She sounded almost amazed, and I realized this, too, would be a big change for her: she'd never been trained, partially because her heritage was so strange that no one knew how to teach her, and partially because of her stolen childhood. She could disguise herself from human eyes, and that was about it. “Like my father?”

“If you choose to be Daoine Sidhe.”

“But I'll be betraying my mother again,” she said reluctantly. “I'll be leaving her alone.”

I thought of Gillian, and the way she'd looked at me when we'd been standing together in her equivalent of this rose-strewn field. “You'll never leave her alone, and she knows it,” I said. “Our mothers can betray us, and we can betray them, but they'll always be our mothers. Nothing takes that away.”

The two Raysels nodded, very slowly. The Blodynbryd turned her face away as the Daoine Sidhe offered me her hands. I took them, smelling blood on the air, coiling like smoke through the mingled perfumes of a thousand roses.

“I choose Daoine Sidhe,” she said.

I'd been expecting that. I still mustered a smile. “This will hurt,” I cautioned.

“I know,” she said. “And Toby . . .”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

There was no way I could answer that, and so I didn't try. I just reached into the cool, thorny field of her heritage, grasping the roots of what made her Blodynbryd, and yanked as hard as I could.

I was getting better with practice: I was able to keep going even when Raysel began to scream. Her blood didn't fight me, which made things easier. She had come to terms with what I was here to do, and even if she had never been much of a blood-worker before, every inch of her that turned fully Daoine Sidhe added a sliver more strength to her power. She fed that power into me, and I took it greedily, turning it back on her in a continual, cleansing wave.

The field of roses was blackening around the edges. The part of my mind responsible for keeping me alive noted dispassionately that it hadn't been that long since I raised the dead, nearly drowned, and sobbed myself to the verge of dehydration, all without eating or sleeping or doing anything else that would allow my body to replenish its resources.

This will hurt,
I thought again, and then the last thin tendrils of Raysel's Blodynbryd heritage snapped off in my hands, and I was falling down into the dark, and nothing particularly mattered anymore. Not even, I was relieved to discover, the pain.

T
HE MIXED SCENTS
of burning wood, warm fur, and roasting chicken assaulted my nose, drawing me up out of a sound sleep. I struggled to keep my eyes closed, dimly aware that as soon as I fully woke, I was going to have to start dealing with the world again—and given how long it had been since I'd slept, that wasn't something I was in a real hurry to do. My head was throbbing, but nothing else hurt. That was a nice change.

Even forming that thought was too strenuous to be safe. The shredded remains of sleep wisped away into a sigh as I pushed myself up onto my elbows and opened my eyes on the Court of Cats.

This was one of the smaller bedchambers, and it was different from most of the others I'd seen in that it only contained a single bed. It was a huge, four-posted thing, with a clean, if moth-eaten, canopy stretching across the top of it. I was in the bed, naturally, covered by a thick patchwork quilt. The center of the room was occupied by a small dining table. A fireplace took up most of the far wall. Tybalt was crouched in front of it, prodding at a chicken on a spit.

I took a breath and said the first thing that came to mind, which happened to be, “A chicken? A rotisserie chicken? Could you get any more Renfair cliché if you really, really
tried
, do you think?”

“I've never actually been to one of your Renaissance Fairs. I think it would be an amusing, if frustrating experience,” said Tybalt, a relieved note in his voice. He twisted to face me without coming out of his crouch. “Welcome back to the land of the living, Sleeping Beauty—and before you protest the label, consider that I pulled you from a glass coffin in the midst of a riot of flowers. I believe a fairy-tale allusion or two is only fitting.”

The last thing I remembered was holding Raysel's hands and yanking the Blodynbryd out of her one drop at a time. I blanched. “Oh, Oberon's balls, did I collapse on top of Rayseline?”

“Yes, and her howling like a Banshee the whole time,” he said, twisting back to face the fire. He gave the chicken another experimental nudge with the fork in his hand. “There were a few moments where I thought you might actually awaken her from her enchanted sleep, simply because she was screaming so much. Alas, you did no such thing. That might have distracted her mother from the fact that you were lying on top of her like a sack of abandoned potatoes.”

“That metaphor got a little mangled somewhere in the middle,” I said, closing my eyes. My stomach rumbled. I ignored it as I asked, “So what happened?”

“Rayseline screamed, you collapsed, Luna shouted that you'd killed her daughter, I interceded before anything overly compromising could happen. I then stood between mother and coffin with you in my arms until she answered your questions.” There was a scraping sound as he presumably took the chicken off the fire. “Once I had the information I needed, I carried you to Etienne's quarters, retrieved our charges, and brought you back here to the Court of Cats, where you would be safe.”

Our charges . . . my eyes snapped open, staring up at the threadbare canopy. “Quentin and Raj. Where are they?”

“They needed rest as much as you did,” said Tybalt. “They are in the room next door, enjoying the chance to slumber without fear of discovery. I'll wake them after you and I have finished our conversation.”

“Our—right.” I turned toward him. He was standing next to the table, holding the roast chicken on a platter. “What did Luna say?”

“It's not what Luna said that should concern you at the moment: it's what I'm saying, and what I'm saying is that I'll tell you what Luna said as soon as you can get out of that bed, come to this table, and eat.” His smile couldn't hide his concern. “You've run yourself to shreds today, and I simply cannot have that.”

“I'm not that tired,” I protested.

“Then push off the blanket, rise from the bed, and come to the table. I have seen how much you've bled today: you'll forgive me if I choose not to believe you.” He took a seat, beginning to portion the chicken onto the plates he had already waiting—plates which appeared to contain potatoes and some sort of lightly dressed salad. He'd been preparing for me to wake up for a while.

Glaring, I attempted to rise to his challenge . . . and failed as my jellied limbs refused to obey even the simplest commands. I tried again, with the same result.

Tybalt observed all this before commenting mildly, “I have seen you accomplish more under worse circumstances, but only when there was an immediate threat to be dealt with, an ally to be rescued or a life to be saved. The situation in which we find ourselves is unpleasant to be sure, and doubtless dangerous, but it is not, at the moment, life-threatening. Your body knows its needs better than you do.”

“You're a jerk sometimes.”

“I'm a cat, always,” he said, and smiled. “At least you sound on the road to recovery. Stop thinking of rising as a way to gain access to information that will cause you to put even more strain on your body's ability to sustain itself, and think of it as a quick route to the sustenance I know you need.” He picked up his plate and waved his hand over it, wafting the smell of the chicken toward me.

I was on my feet before consciously deciding to move, and my butt was hitting the polished bench across from where Tybalt sat before I had time to process what I was wearing. The growling of my stomach had become a roar. I shut it out for a moment as I looked down at my attire: black leggings, a white linen chemise that would need to be belted if I was going to wear it out of this room, and no shoes. No socks either. At least my bare feet were finally warm, courtesy of the bed and the fire.

“Your previous clothing still exists,” said Tybalt. “It simply needed a good drying, and sleeping in it seemed mildly unsanitary.”

“You know, there was a time when waking up to find that someone had changed my clothes would have been a surprise. When did I get used to this, exactly?” I finally reached for the plate that had been set in front of me, and asked a more important question: “Did you get my jacket from Bridget?”

“Yes, and it should be ready for you by now. Were you aware that the mortal world contained establishments called ‘dry cleaners,' which are capable of working feats that previously only Bannicks had been able to accomplish?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Yes, I knew about dry cleaners. I'm a little surprised that you do.”

“In this case, the credit for wisdom should go to your squire. Your precious leathers are pristine.” Tybalt gave my food a meaningful look. “Now please. Eat, so that we may wake the boys and be on our way. I'm sure you'll want that, once you've recovered sufficiently.”

The roaring in my stomach was almost impossible for me to ignore at this point. I still forced myself to hold it off for a few seconds more. “Tell me what Luna said.”

He sighed. “Do you swear to eat your supper even once you have what you desire?”

“Yes. I promise that no matter what you say, unless it spells immediate disaster for someone I care about, I'll sit here and eat before I go haring off, okay? Besides. You took my shoes.” And my knife, I realized: I was unarmed.

Maybe that was intentional. Tybalt took a breath, looked at me solemnly, and said, “Your suspicions are confirmed. The woman we know as Evening Winterrose was born Eira Rosynhwyr, called the Rose of Winter, first daughter of Oberon, King of Faerie, and Titania, the Summer's Queen. She did not return from the dead, because she never died. Of all the Firstborn, the Rose of Winter has been called the most difficult to kill.”

“Ah.” It wasn't as much of a shock as I'd expected it to be: I'd already been almost certain. This just confirmed it. “And Luna was able to resist her as much as she did because . . . ?”

“Because she was not there when Evening first arrived. She remained surrounded by her roses, as she said, which allowed her to resist any call that Evening might send. Further, she had already been exposed at such great length to her own parents, whose Firstborn nature would normally have overwhelmed her—but most of all, because Evening was not Luna's original. Any of the Daoine Sidhe would have trouble denying Evening if given a direct command.” A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “I suspect that this was meant to make the Firstborn better able to control their descendants. I shall have to ask fair Amandine how well that has worked for her when I see her next.”

“If my mother turns you into a lemon tree, I'm not going to yell at her,” I said, somewhat numbly. My mind was far away, and my body took advantage of that brief absence to shovel several bites of chicken and potatoes into my mouth. I barely tasted any of it. Swallowing, I asked, “So why couldn't Grianne resist her? The Candela aren't descended from Titania.”

“No, but Grianne swears her allegiance to Sylvester, who is Evening's to command.”

“Etienne resisted. He swears his allegiance to Sylvester.”

“I have no idea why he was able to achieve that state of grace. Wheels within wheels.” Tybalt sighed. “It's all very troublesome.”

“And it's just going to get worse,” I said grimly. “Can we leave the boys here?”

Tybalt blinked. “Quentin is a friend of this Court, and is well chaperoned by the presence of my nephew, but you're generally loath to be parted from him. Why—”

“He's Daoine Sidhe. I don't want that bitch telling him what to do.” There was a chance his exposure to so many other Firstborn—from the Luidaeg to Blind Michael—would make him resistant. I didn't want to risk it. I took a bite of salad before adding, “I'd hide all the Daoine Sidhe I know here, if that wouldn't be abusing your hospitality.”

“I appreciate your concern for the limits of my charity,” said Tybalt dryly.

“I try to be considerate,” I said, before inhaling another few bites of chicken. My hunger wasn't abating. The magic I'd been doing had taken more out of me than I thought. At least the food seemed to be taking the edge off of my headache. “But yeah. I don't want Quentin near her. If he can be hidden here for a little while, that's for the best.”

“He will object.”

“He'll lose.”

Tybalt raised an eyebrow. “You sound remarkably sure of yourself. Raj—”

“Is Cait Sidhe. Quentin is a squire and a prince of the Divided Courts. His upbringing was a little more hardcore on ‘listen to your elders,' and while I'm aware that I've done a lot to damage his early training, I think some of it is still in there.” I shrugged. “He's not going to be happy. He's going to give in.”

“You speak of ‘leaving the boys here' and carrying on with your current quest, but I admit, October, I'm somewhat unclear as to what that quest is.” Tybalt leaned across the table to transfer half of his chicken onto my plate. I didn't object. “Simon is in town, and this is troubling. Evening is returned from the dead, and was never dead to begin with. The Luidaeg is injured. We know these things are connected, and we know that they are terrible, but none of them provides a clear or immediate course of action. Running to the Queen in the Mists seems logical, except that it might draw our enemies to her, and while Evening is not her parent and original, she's still no match for one of the Firstborn.”

“I know. We need to keep at least one place aside from the Court of Cats safe for our allies, and since we know Evening could eat Arden for breakfast, that means we need to keep Arden off of Evening's radar for as long as possible.” I put a hand over my eyes, taking comfort in the temporary darkness. “I'm happier when I have a bad guy I can hit. Okay. Let's look at this logically: both Simon and the Luidaeg were geased by Evening. We know that Evening was able to somehow know when the Luidaeg said something she wasn't supposed to—she shouldn't have been able to confirm that the geas had been cast by someone I knew. And when the Luidaeg broke the rules, Evening punished her for it.”

We both paused for a moment. I had no doubt that Tybalt's thoughts were following the same dark path as mine, remembering the shattered condition of the Luidaeg's apartment, and the condition she'd been in when we found her. The Luidaeg was one of the most powerful people we knew. The fact that Evening had been able to take her out was terrifying.

“Wait.” I dropped my hand, looking at him. “Evening is
Titania's
daughter.”

Tybalt frowned. “Yes, and?”

“Raysel was able to make the Luidaeg stand down just by saying she was a descendant of Titania. The Luidaeg can't raise her hand against Titania's children. She's said so before, and she can't lie. That's how Evening was able to beat the holy crap out of her without bleeding all over the place and leaving me a trail to follow. The Luidaeg didn't fight back.”

Tybalt's frown deepened. “If that's true . . . someone must have bound her so. Someone who did not much care whether she lived or died, given what I've heard about the treatment of the children of Maeve by the children of Titania.”