The Winter Long (29 page)

I frowned. “She told them to seek power?”

“Yes. Said ‘if you love me, rule the world,' and then she walked away, leaving her descendants hungry for her love the way she had hungered for the love of her mother. I doubt many of them would remember her face—most of her children died young, in the questing for kingdoms to rule, and their children didn't live much longer. Your Sylvester's father was her grandson. She was already gone by the time he was born.” The Luidaeg's expression hardened. “Some people should never have been parents.”

“So she can control Sylvester because he's her descendant, and she can control the people who are sworn to him through their fealty,” I said slowly. “Can she control me?”

“If you allowed her to, yes, but it would have to be your choice,” said the Luidaeg. “You're too aware of her now. She'd have to work harder to have you, and if there's one thing she can't abide, it's hard work.” She paused, appearing to finally realize that our little duo should have been at least a trio. Fear crept into her voice as she asked, “Toby, where's Quentin?”

“I left him in the Court of Cats,” I said. “Even Evening is going to have trouble getting to him there. You would have seen him if you'd stuck around after you woke up.”

“My Court was sealed to my kind by Oberon himself, and none among the Daoine Sidhe holds fealty over any of the Cait Sidhe. He will be safe,” said Tybalt.

“He'll be safe until she finds a Cait Sidhe of Erda's line. Don't discount the part Titania played in the making of your kind. My sister has the most control over her own descendants, but anyone she shares blood with is vulnerable, to a degree,” said the Luidaeg. Tybalt looked uncomfortable. She turned her attention to me. “You know my sister wants your squire.”

“I do,” I said grimly. Quentin was the Crown Prince of an entire continent. There was no way someone as interested in power as Evening apparently was could ignore the potential of a game piece like my squire. “But let's get back to figuring out her limits. What about Dean? Or Etienne? Shouldn't she have been able to control them?”

“Again, that would be harder for her,” said the Luidaeg. “Etienne is descended purely from Oberon, which makes him more resistant to my sister's charms. If he felt he had something more important to defend, he'd be able to avoid her snares, at least for a time. As for Dean, he's only half Daoine Sidhe, and his fealty is sworn to the Mists, which means Queen Windermere. She's Tuatha de Dannan, like Etienne, so my sister has no openings there. Before that, he would have been sworn to his mother.”

“Who's Merrow,” I said thoughtfully. “Got it. Blood makes him hers, but fealty doesn't, and we're back to hard work again. She'd have to want him enough to take him.”

“Exactly,” said the Luidaeg. “It's much better if she can push her hard work off on someone else. She probably didn't feel like she needed to make the effort for a half-breed son of a Merrow and a man who willingly gave up the chance at ever holding a position of his own. She's always been . . . focused . . . when she truly wanted something.”

I looked at the Luidaeg, and then at the warm, homey kitchen around us, with the pot of chowder still bubbling on the stove. I'd never seen her look so domestic. It had to have come from somewhere. I hesitated, the question burning on my lips. She met my eyes and nodded marginally, giving me permission to ask what I needed to know.

“You told me once that one of your sisters betrayed you,” I said slowly. “That she was the one who put the knives into the hands of the people who would become the Selkies.”

“Yes, I said that,” said the Luidaeg.

“Was it Evening?”

Silence followed my question. That wash of black danced across the Luidaeg's eyes again, crossing them so quickly that it was almost like she was blinking an eyelid made of nothing but darkness. Then, finally, she nodded.

“I loved my children. They loved me. They didn't want power, or to be part of any noble court, or anything but each other, and me, and the open sea.” The Luidaeg leaned back in her chair, fixing her eyes on the ceiling. “I think that's what condemned us in her eyes. We were too happy, and nothing happy could ever be genuine. Not to her. She thought we were pulling some elaborate ruse . . . or maybe she was just jealous. I don't honestly know, and I've never been willing to ask her. I can't raise a hand against the children of Titania, after all.”

“Why is that?” asked Tybalt abruptly.

“Because my children were slaughtered like animals, and the people who killed them kept their skins as souvenirs.” The Luidaeg turned back to Tybalt. This time when the darkness flowed into her eyes, it didn't flow away again. “My darling
sister
went to our parents—they were still with us in those days, remember, and they still controlled so much of what we did—and cried that I was blaming her for the actions of the merlins. She said she feared I would harm her. My mother refused her. My father denied her. And her mother bound me. I was forbidden to spread lies—literally forbidden. If I try to tell a lie, my voice stops in my throat and my lungs burn with the need for honest air. I was forbidden to raise a hand against any descendant of Titania's line. And I was forbidden to refuse my favors to anyone who would meet my price.”

“You became the sea witch because of her?” I asked, unable to keep the horror from my voice.

The Luidaeg spread her hands. “I am what she made of me. I wonder sometimes whether she's sorry. I don't think she is. I don't think she's capable of that. My mother . . . she took what vengeance she could. Do not ask me what it was. I can't tell you yet.”

“Yeah, well.” My chowder was half gone, and my bones no longer felt like they were made of Jell-O. I pushed the bowl away. “Evening is at Shadowed Hills. She has my friends. She has my liege. The wards are closed—no one can get in or out. How do I get them back? How do I . . .” I hesitated, the words seeming too large for my mouth. Evening had been my friend for years, or at least I'd believed that she was. “How do I kill her?”

“Honestly, Toby, I don't think you can.” The Luidaeg stood, gathering our bowls and carrying them quickly to the sink. “But I'll come with you. I may not be able to fight her directly; I can help you at least a little. And we need to move now. The longer she has Sylvester in her thrall, the more likely it becomes that he'll never throw off her power. The man you know will be gone, replaced by a shell of loyalty and cold.”

The idea sickened me. “She's had more than enough time already,” I said. “I can drive us to the park, but I have no idea how we're going to get through the wards.”

The Luidaeg's eyes narrowed in chilly amusement. “Oh, don't worry. There's more than one way to cross an ocean, and more than one way to crack my sister's wards. She thinks she's the smartest of us. She's not. She's simply the least scrupulous.”

I looked at her for a moment before shaking my head and saying, “You know, just once, I'd like my life to be all about spending Sunday afternoon in my pajamas, instead of all about racing around the Bay Area trying to stop one of the Firstborn from committing a hostile takeover.”

Tybalt put a hand on my shoulder. “To be fair, this is the first time this particular issue has reared its head.”

“Somehow, not helping,” I said.

The Luidaeg rinsed our bowls and turned, wiping her hands on a dishtowel that she summarily dropped on the counter. She picked up a rose stem that had been lying next to the dish drainer—all that remained of one of Simon's melted winter roses—and grabbed an apple from May's bowl of fruit. “Let's go. I'll help you get us there. And don't bother with disguises; no one's going to see either of you.”

It was better not to ask when the Luidaeg said things like that. I just nodded and followed her out the back door, Tybalt sticking close behind me.

The car waited in the driveway. The Luidaeg walked over to it and put the rose stem down on the middle of the hood, setting her pilfered apple on top of it. “Stand back,” she suggested mildly. “Sometimes this doesn't work out exactly as I planned it.”

“And it just keeps getting better,” I muttered, pressing myself against Tybalt. “Well, it's been a while since one of my cars died horribly in the line of duty.”

The Luidaeg clapped her hands together. All sounds from the street stopped. No horns honked, no birds sang. There was only the soft sound of the Luidaeg singing in a language I didn't know, but which sounded vaguely like the snatches of Scots Gaelic that I'd heard from some of the older fae I'd crossed paths with. The apple rocked. The air chilled. And then, like something out of a Disney movie, the apple and the rose stem dissolved into glittering mist that swirled around the car, etching what looked like patterns of frost onto the otherwise dingy brown paint job. Bit by bit, my car's true colors were concealed by an ice-white sheen. The smell of roses hung heavy in the air.

The Luidaeg stepped back and flashed me a smug smile. “Apples and roses. My sister's signatures. She'll never see us coming if we're surrounded by things she believes belong exclusively to her. Her ego won't allow it.”

I stared. “That's . . .”

“I know.” She turned to Tybalt. “I need a distraction, cat; I need her to think we're coming down a road she knows. Can you take the Shadow Roads and meet us in the parking lot?”

“Can you promise me that you will keep October safe?”

Her expression softened a bit. “As safe as I can. We both know that absolute safety and October are never going to cross paths.”

He snorted. “True enough. Very well, then: I will go. For all that I dislike what you ask of me, I will go.” He turned to face me. With no more preamble than that, he grabbed me around the waist and pulled me close for a kiss that should probably have caused damage to the polar ice caps. He kissed me like he was never going to see me again, crushing his lips against mine until I tasted pennyroyal and musk under the veil of his desperate need for contact. I returned the kiss as best as I could, until he pulled away, leaving a void between us where his body should have been.

I must have gawked at him, because he smiled, the expression almost eclipsing the worry in his eyes.

“Now you will miss me,” he said. “Let the sea witch care for you. I will see you in Shadowed Hills.” He turned, stepping into the shadow formed by the corner of the house, and was gone.

I looked back to the Luidaeg. She was smiling, standing next to the open passenger side door. I guess Firstborn don't care whether something is supposed to be locked. I scowled and walked past her, the taste of Tybalt's magic clinging to my mouth as I slid behind the wheel. The Luidaeg got in next to me, slamming the door. She was still smiling.

“Don't say a word,” I said, jamming the key into the ignition.

“I wouldn't,” said the Luidaeg. “Love is love. It's rarer in Faerie than it used to be—rarer than it should be, if you ask me. If you can find it, you should cling to it, and never let anything interfere. Besides, he has a nice ass.” Her lips quirked in a weirdly mischievous smile. “I mean, damn. Some people shouldn't be allowed to wear leather pants. He's one of them. He's a clear and present danger when he puts those things on. Or takes them off.”

“And now you're creeping me out,” I said. “It's a long drive to Pleasant Hill. Maybe you could save the creepy for the halfway point?”

“Oh, no,” she said. Her eyes had gone black again, and as I watched, they faded to white, like the sun rising behind a bank of thick fog. Her smile remained. “We're going to take a little shortcut.”

I fastened my seat belt, checking it twice before I asked, “Should I even bother starting the car?”

“It helps, believe me. Just drive normally and don't freak out.”

“Oh, because people saying ‘don't freak out' never freaks me out at all,” I muttered, turning the key in the ignition. The car rumbled to life around us. I pulled out of the driveway, trying to focus on the road, and not on whatever the Luidaeg was doing in the seat next to me.

She wasn't making it easy. She began chanting under her breath in that same unknown language, and the smell of brackish marshes and cold, clean ocean air rose around her, filling the car. My own magic stirred in response to the flood, and was quickly drowned out by the power that the Luidaeg was putting into the air. Her ice-white eyes were fixed on the road ahead.

And then, with no more preamble than that, the road was gone, and we were driving through the dark with nothing beneath us or around us. It was like plunging into the Shadow Roads, and not like that at all, because it wasn't freezing cold, and there was still air; I could breathe. That was a good thing, since I let out a rather audible gasp when the transition occurred. The Luidaeg slanted me what I could only interpret as an amused look, despite her continuing chanting. The darkness
shivered
—there was no other word that could encompass the ripples that spread through the black, shadow on shadow and yet somehow still visible—and then fell away, replaced by an overgrown forest of creeping vines and heavy-branched trees that seemed to grab for our vehicle as it rocketed along the narrow horse trail that had replaced the road.

“Don't slow down don't look too closely don't stop the car for any reason,” rattled the Luidaeg, her words coming staccato fast and without pauses between them. She chanted another line in that unrecognizable language before breaking back into English to say, more slowly, “This road was my sister Annis' once, to hold and to keep open. She died a long time ago. No one keeps the byways here anymore.”

“And we're driving a forgotten road belonging to a dead Firstborn exactly
why
?” I couldn't stop my voice from cracking with half-contained panic at the end. This was the sort of situation that called for a certain amount of terror.