The Winter Long (9 page)

Living in the mortal world makes it easy to forget that Faerie doesn't follow the same laws. Maybe that sounds a little pat—I mean, my boyfriend is a cat in his spare time, and my sister was originally the physical embodiment of my impending death—but those things are normal to me. Unlike snow in California, and land that can expand and contract like a rubber band according to the needs of the people who use it.

The one thing that never changes is the size of a claimed demesne. Shadowed Hills had set boundaries and borders. No matter what happened, it remained the same size. Technically, the same could be said about my mother's tower, but it was a pretty small chunk of real estate: the tower and grounds occupied a patch of land scarcely larger than the footprint of my own Victorian house. I guess that's one of the side effects of building upward, rather than outward.

The door opened behind us. I pulled away from Tybalt, turning to see Sylvester standing there with an assortment of coats slung over his arm. He had added a military-style greatcoat to his own attire, tan camel hair or something close, with patches on the elbows. “It occurred to me that you had not made allowance for the weather in your plans,” he said. “I hope you don't mind if I reduce our chances of dying of exposure during the walk.”

There was no point in arguing now. “No, coats are great,” I said, shivering exaggeratedly before I held out my arms. “Gimme. Please. Before I lose feeling in my fingers.”

“You chill too easily,” said Tybalt, with an “I told you so” look.

“You love me anyway.” The coat Sylvester had brought for me was patchwork wool in a dozen shades of red, trimmed with rabbit fur and large enough to fit over my leather jacket. Slipping it on was like enfolding myself in a giant fabric hug. I stuffed my hands into the pockets, enjoying the feeling of being completely surrounded.

“True enough.” Tybalt's coat was of a similar style, if in a more masculine cut, and made of shades of brown and gray. He sniffed once, and then said, “These will do.”

“You're darn right.” I took the last coat from Sylvester—this one done in shades of purple—and held it up, shouting, “Quentin! Come put this on before you catch your death of cold! I need you to live long enough to be cannon fodder when Simon decides to attack.”

“You're really inspiring, you know that?” asked Quentin, as he trudged through the snow to take the coat from my hands.

“I learned from the best,” I said. “Come on. Let's move.”

The boundary of Sylvester's land was always marked by a forest. We walked toward the trees, our feet crunching in the snow, and into a veritable winter wonderland. Everything was limned in glittering white. Most of the trees were leafless and dormant. Meanwhile, the scattered trees that always appeared brown and dead during the summer had come alive, putting forth frost-laced leaves and even delicate winter flowers. I glanced to Sylvester, who knew more about fae flora than I did.

He took the hint. “Luna planted some of these, of course; she took cuttings from others, for the winter gardens. They're all naturally occurring. They can lie dormant for years while they wait for a good snowfall.”

“Huh,” I said.

Quentin was ranging ahead again, too delighted by the snow to be sensible about staying with the pack. Tybalt walked to my left; Sylvester to my right. They didn't look at each other, and I was too tired from lack of sleep and too worried about my mother to play mediator. They were both big boys. They'd figure it out for themselves, or they wouldn't.

The wood ended at a meadow. That was normal. What wasn't normal was the dividing line that ran through the middle of the open ground, cutting it into two distinct landscapes. On our side, the Shadowed Hills side, everything was white and frozen. On the other side, as the land grew closer to Mother's tower, everything was growing resplendently green, completely ignoring the season. In Faerie, the king is the land, and that goes for anyone who holds dominion over even the smallest scrap of territory. The space between Shadowed Hills and Amandine's tower was unclaimed, responding in a general fashion to the kings and queens around it.

“Is there a reason Shadowed Hills is having a white Christmas?” I asked, glancing to Sylvester.

He sighed, and looked away. “Luna is . . . not well,” he said, before beginning his march down the gently sloping hillside, toward that slash of improbable green.

I winced. “Right.” I looked to Tybalt. “Mom probably doesn't even know what season it is.” Actually, thinking about it, it was never anything but summer at her tower. That was part of why the snow had been such a surprise. I'd only lived in the Summerlands for a decade or so—no time at all, as Faerie measured such things—and most of that time had been spent as Amandine's shadow, living with her in her eternal summertime. It was easy to forget that some people were fond of cycles, if not of actual change.

“Amandine will be fine,” said Tybalt, taking my arm in his. “If Simon wishes to challenge a Firstborn daughter of Oberon on her own ground that will be his funeral, not yours.”

“Come on.” I started after Sylvester, trying not to dwell on the word “funeral.” Mom was Firstborn. That didn't make her immune to Oberon's Law. If she killed Simon, she could be in serious trouble, and while I didn't think she was a killer, it was always hard to tell what Mom would do. I'd never learned to read her the way I had most of the other people who made up my admittedly small circle of family and close friends. But in the years since I'd returned from the pond . . .

Fae madness isn't the same as human mental illness. Sometimes I wish the fae had maintained a language of their own, rather than stealing and sharing with mortals. Maybe then we'd have a better word for what the purebloods go through when the centuries of mistakes and magical backlash get to be too much. They go away for a time, receding into themselves and pulling a veil of fog over the world. It's the only way to give their brains the space to carve out a new worldview, something that can account for the changes that inevitably happen around them. Amandine had been skirting the edges of that fog when I had run away from her, tired of watching her flirt with an oblivion that would probably leave me dead of extreme old age before it let her go. Then Simon had transformed me, and by the time I made it back to my own body, Amandine was gone, burying herself in the fog with all the enthusiasm of a girl preparing for her first formal ball.

She might know Simon wasn't living with her anymore. But depending on how long they'd been together, she might not.

I walked a little faster.

Everything changed when we stepped across the invisible line dividing the lands influenced by Shadowed Hills from the lands influenced by my mother. The temperature shot up at least ten degrees, everything suddenly smelling of fresh green leaves and sweet potential. I pulled my arm away from Tybalt long enough to shrug out of my coat. He and Quentin did the same. Sylvester kept his coat on, but his was tailored, not borrowed from the general stock; it was probably enchanted to keep him at just the right temperature, regardless of the weather. We walked on until the bowl of the meadow began slanting upward again, and we stepped out of springtime into summer.

By any rules of normal geography, we should have been able to see Amandine's tower long before we reached that transition point. The Summerlands aren't big on rules. We stepped into the summer, and the land leveled out before us, and we were suddenly standing less than fifteen yards from the low stone wall that surrounded the elegant white needle of the tower. The stone glowed faintly against the twilit sky. Flowering trees and bushes crowded her garden, all blooming in a dozen shades of white and ivory.

“Think she's home?” asked Quentin.

“I don't have the slightest idea,” I said, and started walking faster. The others fell back, allowing me to take the lead. The enchantments on the tower knew who I was; they'd always let me in, no matter what else might be going on. That could be important, depending on the situation ahead of us.

The gate swung open when I touched it. I left my fingertips against the wood, murmuring, “These three are with me. Let them in.” Then I walked on, into my mother's garden.

Tybalt, Quentin, and Sylvester followed without difficulty. The enchantments were listening.

I hadn't lived in the tower for a long time, but the layout of the garden had always been simple, and I knew the way. I followed the path as it curved gently past the marble birdbath to the door, which was standing open. That was enough to make me stop, one hand going to my knife as I sniffed the air, trying to find traces of magic beneath the riotous perfumes of a dozen different types of flower, some of which never existed in the mortal world. I thought I smelled smoke. I couldn't be sure.

“Tybalt?”

“Yes.” The smell of pennyroyal and musk cut through the layers of perfume as he transformed, and as a cat, he raced past me, up the shallow steps at the threshold, into the building beyond.

I tensed, waiting where I was. Simon was a powerful magician, but Tybalt was harder to transform than I was—most people are harder to transform than I am—and there's very little that can catch a Cait Sidhe when he's not trying to be caught. The tower was five floors, no more than four rooms to a floor. Some of the floors were a single large room, like mine, like Amandine's. He could search them and return in an instant. He could—

He reappeared on the steps, stretching back into human form, a blank expression on his face. For just an instant, I was certain that he had found her body in one of the tower's upper rooms, throat slit by the silver and iron required to kill one of the Firstborn, colorless eyes open and staring into the rafters.

Then he shook his head. “She is not here; from the scent markings in her room and parlor, she has not been here in days, maybe even weeks. There are no signs of a struggle. I'm sorry, October. Your mother is still missing.”

It was almost a relief. I realized that even as I sighed, shook my head, and said, “We had to check. Did you smell anyone else?”

“Yes.” His face hardened again. “Traces of candle smoke and rotten oranges. Simon has been here, and recently.”

I turned to Sylvester to see how he was taking this news. He was staring at the tower, lips gone pale and bloodless as he pressed them into a thin, hard line. One hand was grasping the pommel of his sword. His knuckles were white, and I had to fight not to take a step away from him.

“I can't follow this trail. Our magic is not so attuned as it once was, and he is too far for me to follow. He could see our walls from your mother's land, and the wards would never tell me how close he had come,” said Sylvester, voice pitched low. “He could have been here for days, watching us, waiting for the chance to strike. Oh, he is going to pay for what he's done to me and mine, October. On the root and the branch, I promise you that.”

I glanced to Tybalt, who looked as alarmed as I felt. He stepped away from the tower, and the door swung shut behind him, leaving the four of us standing in my mother's garden, where the white petals from the blossoming trees were falling like so much unfrozen snow.

W
E TRUDGED SILENTLY
through the meadow between Mom's land and Sylvester's. Even when we stepped back into the snow, Quentin remained by my side, not running off to make snowballs or enjoy the weather. The quiet lasted until we were standing on the lawn of Shadowed Hills, with the doors waiting to welcome us into warmth and presumptive safety. Tybalt, Quentin, and I stopped. Sylvester took a few more steps before turning to face the rest of us.

“October—” he began.

I raised a hand, cutting him off. “Who would he run to? If he isn't here with my mother, where would he think he could go for aid?” He wouldn't be hiding with the changeling underground, of that I was certain: places like the one that had raised me were too far beneath him, even in his hour of need.

Sylvester frowned slowly, looking confused. “Are you that angry with me?”

“Right now? Yes. You've been keeping secrets from me. Things I needed to know.” Like maybe before he'd sent me running after Simon, before I'd been turned into a fish and left stranded in a watery jail for fourteen years. “I love you. I always will. But right now, I'm pretty pissed at you. So can you just answer the question, please?”

“Simon was . . . not well when he was last here,” said Sylvester, picking his words with care. “He was separated from your mother. Luna disliked having him in our halls. He wandered the Kingdom, taking hospitality where he could find it.”

“Did he go to January?” I asked.

Sylvester shook his head. “No. Tamed Lightning had not been founded yet, and as a titled, unlanded Count, Duchess Riordan saw him as a threat. Perhaps if he'd been willing to formally divorce your mother—but that would have required taking steps neither wanted taken.”

I blinked, frowning. Fae marriages are complicated things, filled with rules about inheritance and succession that I never bothered learning. But fae divorces are simple. Unless there are children involved, all the couple needs to do is announce that they're no longer married. “Why didn't they want to get a divorce?”

“I don't see how this relates to where he would be if not here or at your mother's tower.”

I bared my teeth. “Humor me,” I half-snarled. “Why didn't they want to get a divorce?”

“Because that would mean admitting there was no hope for them. It may be hard for you to believe, but there was a time when we were all so much younger than we are now. My brother loved your mother as he's loved very few. He wasn't willing to give up on her. And maybe I'm a sentimental old fool, but I always took it as a good sign that your mother wasn't willing to give up on him, either.”

There was something he wasn't telling me. I've had a lot of practice at being lied to, and I know how to recognize the signs. I narrowed my eyes. “What else?”

“What?”

“What else aren't you telling me?” He started to protest. I shook my head, stopping him before he could get a word out. “No. Maeve's teeth, Sylvester, I'm mad at you for keeping secrets, and you're
still doing it
. Why the hell would you do a thing like that? You know you're on thin ice right now.”

“My dear, I've been on thin ice for a very long time, especially where your family is concerned.” Sylvester ran a hand through his hair, sighing as he turned to look at the forest blocking our view of Amandine's tower. “There is so much history between your mother and me, between all of us . . . I don't even know where to begin. But there are also things that I promised her I would never tell you. I broke one promise to her. I won't break a second. I'm sorry. I truly am. I love you more than I can ever make you believe, but I gave her my word.”

I stared at him. Finally, I asked the one question I was sure he would actually answer: “What promise did you break?”

“She came to me when she was pregnant with you. She asked me to stay away from her child, from her mortal life, until she chose to reenter Faerie on her own terms.” Sylvester turned back to me. “I won't apologize for coming to get you before she could make you mortal, but that betrayal has been a wall between us ever since. She's never forgiven me. I don't think she ever will.”

“Wait.” I wanted to scream at him, to tell him he was one of the people I'd always counted on to never betray me. Unfortunately, right now, it was more important for me to be smart. Purebloods take promises seriously; it's part of why they hate saying “thank you,” a prohibition that most changelings catch from their fae parents, like catching cooties on the playground. And the next step up from a promise is a geas, a binding enchantment compelling someone to do something—or
not
to do something. Like, for example, never to tell certain secrets. Ironic, and annoying. “Simon said something while he was at my house. He said he couldn't speak the name of his employer, because his geas still held. Do you have any idea who might have hired him to kidnap Luna and Rayseline?”

“I have asked myself that question a thousand times without finding an answer. If I had even the faintest clue, I would have tracked that person down years ago and made them pay for everything they had done to me, to my family, and to you,” said Sylvester, a new chill leeching into his words, until every one of them could have frozen me where I stood.

Or maybe that was just the snow we were all standing around in. I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to conserve warmth, and said, “Okay. So you don't know anything that can help us find Simon, and some old promise to my mother matters more to you than I do. Good to know where I stand.”

“October—”

“We're leaving.” I turned to head for the doors. Sylvester grabbed my arm. I stopped, slowly turning back to look at his hand. Voice level and calm, I said, “Let go of me.”

“I would never allow anyone or anything to harm you. If you believe nothing else, I need you to believe that.”

Except that he
was
harming me; he had been harming me every time he kept the things I needed to know secret from me. He just couldn't see it. “I
need
you to let go of me.”

And then Tybalt was there, shoving his way between us, forcing Sylvester to let me go. The two of them stared at each other for a moment. A low growl was rolling through Tybalt's chest, making the hair on my arms stand on end. I glanced at Quentin, who was watching the whole scene with wide, frightened eyes.

“I speak to you now as a King to a Duke, and with the utmost respect,” said Tybalt, in a tone that made it clear he could care less if Sylvester took offense. “If October is hurt because you kept a promise to her mother rather than upholding your duty to one who is your sworn vassal, believe me when I say that I will return here on my own, and I will make you sorry you ever allowed harm to come to her.”

Sylvester smiled a little, eyes still filled with shadows. “Tybalt, if October is hurt because of what I didn't tell her, I'll leave the door open for you.”

“Great. Since we're at the threats and dick-waving part of the day, I guess this is where we go,” I said. “Sylvester, if you decide to change your mind about being an asshole, you have my number.” I turned and stormed back into the knowe before he could reply, with Quentin and Tybalt close at my heels. Everything felt wrong. My stomach was a hard, cold knot of anger and dismay. The world—my world—was changing again, and I didn't like it.

I didn't like it one bit.

The halls of Shadowed Hills were deserted, which made sense, given the time of day: any sensible purebloods would be asleep, and most changelings who live in the Summerlands learn to keep pureblood hours. We were almost to the door before I heard footsteps hurrying up from behind, and turned to see Etienne walking toward us as fast as decorum allowed. He was wearing his uniform, but it looked a little more rumpled than I was used to, like he had finally allowed himself to relax a little bit. It was a surprisingly good look on him.

Etienne had always been the most hidebound of Sylvester's knights. We were all expected to wear ducal livery if we were standing guard, but most of us called it a day when we reached “presentable.” Not Etienne. If he had to leave his quarters, his boots
gleamed
with polish, and his hair was styled until it looked shellacked. Not now. His tabard was only laced halfway down the sides, and his hair was mussed in that “straight out of bed” way endlessly imitated by fashion magazines and aspiring models. For the first time, I could understand what Bridget had seen in him. He looked like a man, and not like a Ken doll with a sword.

“October, wait!” he called, and walked a little faster, not quite breaking into a run. Running in the halls was against the rules, after all.

I stopped walking. Quentin and Tybalt did the same, and Quentin shook his head. “I've never seen Sir Etienne this unkempt.”

“Me neither,” I said. “I wish I had a camera.”

Etienne, who was close enough to hear us, glared. “Show some decorum,” he said. “It might serve you well in your future dealings with the nobility.”

I wanted to protest that I didn't intend to have any future dealings with the nobility, but as I was standing between my boyfriend the King of Cats and my squire the Crown Prince of North America, that would have been a little disingenuous. “I've done okay without any decorum so far,” I said. “I'll take my chances. What's got you out of bed in the middle of the day? Please tell me you're not going to ask me to babysit. I've got a sort of full plate right now.”

“October, I would trust you to the ends of the earth with my child's life and safety; should she ever be endangered again, Oberon forbid, there is no one I would rather set upon her trail,” said Etienne. “But the Fire Kingdoms will freeze before I allow you to babysit.”

I snorted. “Shows what you know. I'm good with teenagers.”

“Yeah,” said Quentin. “She hasn't gotten me shot in
ages
.”

“Aren't you helpful,” I said, glaring at him.

Quentin beamed.

Etienne looked between us, apparently bemused. “Your method of communication remains as irreverent as ever,” he said. “Chelsea woke me, but she has nothing to do with why I came to catch you. Is it true? Is Simon back in the Mists?”

“He came to my house,” I said. “He tried to talk to me. When that didn't work out for him, he attacked Jasmine and ran. I'm going to the Luidaeg's now to ask her what we should do, but I wanted to check on Sylvester first.”

“And because of their similarity in appearance, you felt the need to lay eyes upon him yourself, rather than using the telephone,” said Etienne grimly. It wasn't a guess: he was the one who'd trained me, and he knew how my brain worked. “That makes sense, although it seems needlessly reckless. You shouldn't be involved in this. Let Sylvester handle it.”

“Fuck. That. For one thing, I'm almost as mad at Sylvester as I am at Simon right now. For another, what do you want me to do? Wait for Simon to come back to the house and condemn us all to a new life in somebody's fish tank? Nuh-uh. I'm willing to be patient when patience is called for, but that isn't being patient, that's being stupid.” I shook my head. “I'm going to the Luidaeg. She doesn't volunteer information, but at least with her, I know she's telling me the truth when she speaks.”

“October—”

“I know Simon was married to my mom.” Was
still
married to her, although I didn't want to say that out loud; it was too disgusting to waste time thinking about. “Is there anything
else
you people haven't been telling me?”

Etienne looked alarmed. He raised his hands, palms toward me. “Peace! I never spoke of it because they were separated, and I assumed you knew and didn't want to discuss it. It would have been unseemly to bring it up.”

I stared at him, my anger taking on a new white-hot form. “Oh, my sweet Maeve, you thought Sylvester took me as his knight because of
Simon
, didn't you? That was why you never believed me when I said I'd earned my post. You thought I was . . . I think I'm going to be sick.”

To his credit, Etienne looked ashamed. “I learned better.”

“Oh, oak and ash.” I closed my eyes for a moment, breathing in deeply. The situation wasn't Etienne's fault. He hadn't done this to me. When I opened my eyes again, he was watching me warily, like I might bite. Forcing my tone to lighten, I said, “Look, I need to run, but once this is all taken care of, we should take the kids and do something fun. Hit Great America for the day.”

“What is ‘Great America'?” asked Etienne, dropping his hands back to his sides.

I smiled. “Ask Chelsea. I'm sure she'll be happy to explain.” Great America was a local roller coaster park. There was no way Chelsea wouldn't know all about it, and no way Etienne would be able to avoid an outing once he'd mentioned the possibility. Maybe using his teenage daughter against him was mean, but hell, people used my squire against me all the time. Turnabout was just fair play.