The Winter Long (27 page)

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 kill 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.

M
OST 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 slammed 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.

She was tall, with the kind of curves that would have made her a star if she'd ever cared to try her hand in Hollywood, and a face that looked like it had been refined by a hundred great artists before it was given to anyone to wear. Her white-gold hair was held away from her face with a simple circlet, and fell otherwise loose down her back, like a river of molten metal. I looked at her through his eyes, and wondered if the false Queen of the Mists had gotten her fondness for long, pale hair from my mother, who made it look like the only style worth wearing.

I hadn't seen her since I'd learned that she was Firstborn. Looking at the memory image of her, I couldn't believe I hadn't seen it from the very beginning. She looked nothing like the Daoine Sidhe. She looked only and entirely like herself.

Amandine looked around the room
(ballroom in the great palace of Londinium, and not a jewel in the Queen's crown could shine any brighter than her smile)
until her eyes settled on me/Simon. She started toward me/Simon, her smile broadening.

“Simon. I had hoped you would do us the honor of attendance this day. My lady, the Queen, has remarked often on your absence.” She had an accent. Since when did my mother have an accent? She sounded Scottish, rolling her r's and burring her t's in a sweet, lilting rhythm.

She's never had an accent,
I thought fiercely. The scene took on a red tint as I resisted it.
Accents don't just disappear. Don't lie to me, Simon. Don't you dare.

I can't. Not here, not in the blood.
The thought was wistful, and almost intrusive in its immediacy. This was no memory: this was Simon answering me without saying a word.
Her accent faded, and then she put it aside like a toy she no longer wanted to play with. Centuries and the desire not to stand out as foreign when walking among the humans will work wonders on even the deepest habits. But when I first loved her, when she was Amandine of no particular family line, she was born in Scotland, and raised there for the better part of her youth.

The ballroom had frozen, Amandine still smiling at Simon's memory of himself. This must have happened centuries ago. She hadn't aged a day.

Okay,
I thought.
I believe you, but . . . we can't linger here. I need to know what I need to know. The fact that you thought my mom was hot doesn't really matter.

I felt his laughter.
Oh, October. The fact that I thought your mother was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen matters more than you can know. Let go. Come back.

Letting go of my confusion and diving back into the blood memory was almost impossibly hard. The smell of smoke and mulled cider assaulted my nostrils as the ballroom scene blurred and disappeared around us, replaced, briefly, by Simon and my mother standing in front of a man that Simon's memory identified as the then-High King of North America, their hands joined, their eyes fixed only on each other. More than a hundred years had passed between those memories: I knew that, even if I didn't know how I knew. It was just . . . obvious.

The scene dissolved. Amandine's tower appeared, the door standing open to reveal a garden riotous with color. Red roses, golden daisies, purple spires of love-lies-bleeding—it was like looking into an amateur version of one of Luna's projects, fiercely alive and just as fiercely beautiful. Mother's gardens had never looked like that while I lived with her . . . but this memory was long before me, wasn't it? Because there was Amandine, her belly huge with a baby I had never met, smiling indulgently at Simon.

She chose me, she chose me out of everyone she could have chosen in the world, and I will not disappoint her; I will be the man she needs, and the father that our child deserves. I will always be there for her. I will be there for both of them. Nothing in this world or any other could make me fail them.

Another flicker, and the Amandine who raced through our/my field of vision wasn't pregnant anymore. The little girl she pursued had silvery braids that glimmered red, like the reddish gold I sometimes saw in wedding rings. Amandine pounced, and the little girl laughed, twisting in her mother's arms to bury her hands in the pale waterfall of Amandine's hair.

The scene froze.

“Even here, there are holes in what I can say.” The voice came from beside me, not inside my own head. I turned. There was Simon—but he wasn't looking at me. His eyes were fixed on his wife and daughter, and there was a look of heartbreaking yearning on his face. I think that if I had killed him in that moment, looking at that scene, he would have died thanking me. “The bindings I am under are very strong. She made sure of that.”

“You can say ‘she' without flinching now,” I said. “Can you tell me if I get something wrong?”

“I believe I can, yes.” Simon sighed deeply. “We were so happy. What happened to us?”

“Near as I can tell, Evening Winterrose happened to you.” I didn't mean to snark: it was almost automatic at this point. I still hated him for what he'd done to me—I wasn't sure there was anything that could make me hate him any less—but I was also starting to feel strangely sorry for him. Maybe that was a sign of growing maturity. Maybe it was a sign that I was just too tired to care. “She's the one who geased you, right? Just so we're absolutely clear.”

“Yes.” The scene changed. In an instant, the little girl was a long-limbed teen, sitting at the table with her mother, a smile on her face as they shared a plate of fruit and cheese. Looking at them, I felt sorrow, and an overwhelming jealousy. Amandine had never been easy with me. Not like that. Not like she was with the daughter that she'd lost.

“Did you know Evening was the Daoine Sidhe Firstborn?”

“Not at first.” Simon's voice took on a new level of bitterness. “I had my suspicions—things she'd said, things she'd done. Even the way she looked at my wife. I asked Amy once if—” He stopped speaking.

The silence stretched on for long enough that I started to worry. I turned back to him, and he was gone, replaced by the tower wall. “Simon?” A red veil began to cloud my vision. Something was wrong.

Spoke too soon can't say can't say can't say her name . . .

The scene in the tower accelerated, the teenager becoming a young woman, arguing with Amandine, storming out; Amandine following her, and then the tower itself disappearing, leaving me floating in the endless red . . .

“Simon! It's okay, you don't have to say her name! Just focus, okay?” I tried to search through the red for the oranges and smoke combination of his magic, and as I did I realized that here, in his heart, there was no citrus sharpness or rot; just the sweet smells of mulled cider and extinguished candle flames. That was what his magic had been, once, before Evening corrupted him. “Come back to me.” I pulled harder on the blood, calling on the thin line of his magic.

Beside me, Simon gasped. I turned to face him. We weren't in the tower anymore: we were standing in the trees, vast evergreens reaching for the sky on all sides. He was breathing heavily, his hand pressed to his chest like he was trying to keep his heart from stopping.

When he recovered his composure, he said, “My apologies, October. That was somewhat more . . . bracing . . . than I had expected.”

“I'll be more careful,” I said. “Just breathe, okay?”

“I will do my very best,” he assured me.

“Okay. So . . . you knew that Evening was Firstborn, or at least you suspected it. And this was after you and Mom were married. What changed? How did Evening get her claws into you?”

There was a long pause. Then, in a voice that sounded like it was breaking into a million pieces right in front of me, Simon whispered, “There she is.”